


Salute

by madame_alexandra



Series: Identity [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Closure, F/M, Family, Friendship, Happy Ending, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 35,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_alexandra/pseuds/madame_alexandra
Summary: A salute - a gesture (usually military) used to indicate respect, greeting, or farewell. In this case, perhaps all three (literally, and metaphorically). Han and Leia come to a clear point of demarcation in what has been a well-fought, post-war journey - and end that's really more of a beginning. H/L; an Identity 'verse installment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: this one can be defined sort of as a core story, and sort of as a periphery story; the most important thing about it is that this installment is where the integral parts of the Identity universe end! it feels odd using an exclamation point there - am i happy, or sad? don't worry, i don't have a habit of "ending" my universes in that i never touch them again. this one will still be written in, the stories will just be one shots or anthologies. here, we just round everything out -stability and happy endings. see the following notes for refreshers on context/timeline:
> 
> ANH (O ABY), ESB (3 ABY), ROTJ (4 ABY). Identity began in 4 ABY (prologue, 2 months post-Battle of Endor), spanned 5 ABY, and ended with the wedding in 6 ABY. The Naberries and Backlash covered 6 ABY. Casualty (and Recovery) covered 7 ABY, and ended with the Haven opening during New Year's Festival Week, 8 ABY. Forward bridges further into 8 ABY, which brings us here:
> 
> this story 'verse continues to be AU.

1/2

_ 3 years post-Identity;  
almost 2 years post-wedding _

* * *

There was a unique and welcome allure present in the atmosphere of their new home; the air was fresh, and light - the ambiance was distinct, flavored with quiet, exciting newness, and anticipation, but tempered too with a sense of satisfied yearning, and safety, and success. The combination of such a complex aura -a notion of peril, at last having reached its plateau, and fierce, restless ambition for the future - simmered warmly in the heart, and drew Leia into intense reflection as she stood within the doorway of one of the empty rooms.

Her eyes roamed over the fresh walls, the sparkling sunlight streaming through a window that faced into a green, flourishing courtyard - a rarity, in the midst of the smog-ridden, heavy metal jungles of Coruscant - and she contemplated it: home; this home, and the idea of the word at the core.

She had been without a home, in some sense of the word, for so long. Her home had been taken, obliterated, its physical form reduced to scattered shrapnel around her. She had been left a fugitive, an orphan, a fractured soul -  _lost_ , wandering in a wilderness of uncertainty, and running from a seemingly invincible foe. Against all odds, though, that foe had been defeated, and then the galaxy was in a state of flux comparable to hers - liberated, but injured, and faced with a raging uphill battle just to find stability and peace - true, _tenable_  peace.

She still vividly remembered the isolated interlude she had taken with Han in the dawning days of Rebellion victory, the quiet seclusion in the mountains of Corellia where her losses had settled, really settled, for the first time, rooting deep in her bone marrow and filling her with a tense, ravaging fear that remained a tempestuous influence on her emotions for years.

In all the residual fighting of the Reconstruction period she had occupied temporary spaces - temporary governments, temporary homes - until Han came back to her from the final battle, and she dismissed pressures to marry politically, and they found that first home together, that first place, small, and simpler than she had ever expected - a stumbling, toddler home where even in the burgeoning calm of the New Republic their personal trials, adjustments, and recoveries had still raged.

It had all converged on this, to this moment, and this place, that seemed to serve as a blessed demarcation, a point both physical and metaphorical that would serve as the launching point for life beyond the war, beyond the trauma - life _lived_ , rather than life fought for, and then fought with. It was odd to think that a new, barely christened penthouse could mean so much, and feel so comfortable - and yet it soothed her heart, settled her mind, and brought unbridled delight to her soul similar to the abandon she felt when she and Han first moved in together.

She bore no animosity towards their old apartment; it had been well loved, and eagerly lived in. It had been theirs, but it had been obtained in carefully controlled chaos, in urgency - chosen with care, but not necessarily with permanent intent. She had wanted to be with Han,  _live_  with Han, in their own private safe haven after the war, and tangential to that was the feeling that she needed to cement her unavailability in the eyes of her colleagues and would be suitors by shacking up with him. It had been a transient place, in its own way, and they both knew that subconsciously, an unobtrusive battleground for personal demons that would always remain meaningful - and in a more tangible sense, would always remain theirs, as Leia had decided against selling the old apartment.

Since events during the Skywalker Reckoning that had revealed her address to the public, she was wary of the location becoming a shrine to be gawked at, particularly because so much private pain had been weathered within those walls. And so, as she and Han moved on, it remained another property in the hands of the vast Organa holdings, there to be remembered, or looked back on, if needed.

Here, in the elite, ravishingly private Conservation District - one of the few quieter, more aesthetically pleasing sectors - Leia had found a place as close to a dream as one could find on the rabid city planet. Nestled much closer to the Alderaanian Embassy - whereas the old apartment had been strategically close to the Senate, and military headquarters - their new home was a more secure oasis, a privileged area with diminished traffic, more space; a community of others with enough wealth and power to demand as much seclusion as one could find on Coruscant and enough sense not to pry into the business of the iconic couple quietly settling in to one of the buildings.

She had chosen this with attention to detail and care, with thought and foresight, with the intention of living beyond the shadow of the Empire, beyond the scope of the post-war era and far into the true renaissance of the New Republic. It was a place for the future, for the so-called rest of their lives - for family, for everything they wanted. It was elegant, spacious, and luxurious, though still by no means a palace like the ones of Leia's youth.

She likened it to the modern, high-end apartment Winter had secured for herself, while Han dramatically - though with clear enjoyment - declared that it was, indeed, a castle. Where their old place had been a place of bridges and struggle, of revitalization and discovery, this was the place of confidence and established victory - the place where their future would unfold uninhibited.

She and Han had spent the past two months finalizing the move - determining the layout of rooms, furnishings, and dealing with technicalities such as docking for the  _Falcon,_ pet permits, access codes. Leia had been handling furniture commissions from Alderaanian artists, had made choices in decor, signed papers, sorted through old things and new - it was a lengthy process that they had thrown themselves into as they put her miscarriage and his bacta therapy behind them, one spent back-and-forth between old and new (and some nights, for old time's sake, on the _Falcon_ ), weeks of preparation endlessly careening towards the day when they could declare themselves utterly moved in, and Leia could stand - as she did now - on the threshold of a room that was yet to be filled and feel she was  _home_.

She felt at ease, and rejuvenated - a whirlwind of emotions fluttered in her, but all of them coalesced into quiet calm for the time being. Her shoulder pressed into the doorframe at her side, and she thought idly of many things – upcoming diplomatic negotiations, Han's impending retirement, and the looming prospect of meeting her brother's paramour.

In the grand scheme of things, dinner with Mara Jade hardly seemed like a monumental event, but for Leia it was, and in its own way, it was a kind of final step in moving away from the residues of darkness.

Leia shifted her feet, tilting her head up, her lashes fluttering at the shift of the sun through the window – across from her, at a slight angle, was a neat, cozy built in window seat, one that reminded her of a reading nook – albeit much grander – she had once had nestled into a gilded window in her bedroom in Aldera. She didn't at all mind the lack of grandeur about this one; it was simple, yet so important to her, as what she missed was not the opulence of Alderaan, but the hearth, and the familiarity – and she was rediscovering that feeling in her surroundings.

She moved away from the door and strode across the empty room, bare feet sinking into the plush, pristine carpet as she walked – it had that new, perfect feel; unlived in, a blank slate waiting to be stained and mussed up with flurries of activity – her feet, Zozy's paws, Han's feet –  _little feet_  –

She sat down in the window seat, tucking herself into the corner, peering out into the courtyard – the view was beautiful, a rare thing on Coruscant. Not every room with a window was graced with such a blessed view; some had other vantage points, though not as crowded as in other districts – but this one was one of the near-perfect ones, and from it she could gaze past a little shelf where one could put a window garden and stare down into the private area where, even now, a few young children scampered around playing with their toys.

Her hand drifted to the window, and then down to her chest as she watched them pensively, contemplating herself, and her instincts. She was so finely aware of herself lately that despite not being quite sure, she was almost sure – and she knew, even better, what to feel for this time –

Leia brushed her fingers over her ribs, pressing her fingertips into her abdomen. Her foot dangled off the window seat, toes curling and brushing the carpet lazily. Vaguely, she wondered where Han had gotten to – he'd gone off to investigate the panicked chirping sounds Zozy was making from somewhere in the penthouse.

They had so recently put the finishing touches on everything – moved in, in every sense of the words; all that was left now to make their marks, to deeply imprint on the place, to  _live_.

She closed her eyes briefly, leaning her head back, her hand laying in her lap limply – and opened them again only when a shadow fell over her. The shadow, somehow both tall, and wriggly, didn't say anything until Leia tilted her head and blinked, and when she showed those signs of movement, Han gently dumped Zozy into her lap.

The Mooka gave an excited squeak and leapt up to lick her jaw. She accepted the affection with a smile, but quickly, almost instinctively, slid her hand between her abdomen and Zozy's paws, just for a little extra protection – couldn't hurt.

"What was he fussing about?" Leia murmured, pursing her lips and pressing a little kiss to Zozy's snout as he calmed down and sat down happily in her lap, his feathery tail swishing back and forth contently.

Han folded his arms.

"Don't think he likes empty rooms," he grunted. "Found him standing in front of one of the ones we ain't figured out yet, just chirping at it suspiciously."

Leia giggled softly.

"I snuck up on 'im and he ran off, scaled up into Chewie's hammock, and got stuck," Han added indignantly. "I told 'im Chewie's gonna eat 'im for dinner."

Leia clicked her tongue, smoothing the feathers around Zozy's ears down. She shook her head.

"Chewbacca won't eat you," she soothed. She rubbed Zozy's chest. "Not enough meat on your bones," she whispered.

She let him snuggle a little closer, and looked up at Han, blinking as her eyes adjusted – the sun was hitting him oddly, coming in the window in a strange way, and it was both too bright to look at him, and she couldn't see him well.

"Sit down," she murmured.

Han sat down – effortlessly, collapsing on the other side of the window seat with her. Instead of propping one leg up and dangling the other as she did, he stretched both out, and crossed his legs at the ankle, somehow managing to balance on the hard surface with the appearance of carefree ease.

He reached out and ran his hand over her ankle lightly, his fingertips pressing into her skin.

"You like the empty rooms?" he asked.

Leia smiled at him softly her head resting back against the wall.

"I don't mind them," she murmured.

Han looked around intently, a thoughtful frown touching his lips. She knew he wasn't used to this much space – even their brief stay at the Alderaanian Embassy was different; that place was entirely furnished, suites were somewhat compact, and it had been full of Leia's family, making it seem full and crowded when it wasn't.

"You?" she ventured.

"S'eerie," Han muttered slowly. He shot her a wry look. "'M not gonna go around chirpin' at the corners, though," he teased, flicking his eyes down pointedly at Zozy.

Zozy seemed to sense was being talked about, and let his tongue poke out, tilting his head cutely at Han. He swished his tail, and Han rolled his eyes.

"We always had empty rooms – empty wings, really – in the palaces," Leia said reflectively. "Standing at the ready for guests, friends, extended family," she listed. She shrugged. "Furnished, of course," she murmured. "This one isn't furnished."

"You spend a lot of time in this one," Han pointed out.

Leia looked taken aback.

"I do not," she protested, her brow furrowing – she wasn't angry, she just disagreed – she certainly didn't spend a significant amount of time milling around in the emptiness in here – she passed it frequently, as it was down the same hallway as their master bedroom –

Han nodded, tilting his head.

"Yeah," he countered. "You're always stoppin' in the doorway to glance around. Or startin' to put boxes in here, then takin' 'em out," he said. "Or, you were, 'til we got everything unpacked."

She looked at him wordlessly, her brow still knit uncertainly – was she doing so, subconsciously? It wasn't a room suited for them; they needed more ample closet space and an ensuite 'fresher. This was more suited for –

"Well," Leia said delicately. "I like this room."

She shifted her hand, brushing it down Zozy's back, and then setting it down next to her and placing her palm flat on the window seat.

"I had a sort of seat like this, in Aldera," she said. "I would sit in it and read, or study, or write," she listed, and then smirked a little, "or daydream."

"What d'ya daydream about?" Han asked predictably.

"Nice men," Leia retorted promptly, her eyes flashing primly.

He gave her a serious look.

"You ever find one?"

Leia rolled her eyes lightly, turning to look out the window again. She leaned forward slightly, and as she did Zozy leapt from her lap, scampering across the open floor happily, and Leia was able to bend entirely towards Han, reaching out to slide her hands over the one he had on her ankle, and interlace their fingers.

She pulled his hand up a little and lowered her lips, kissing his knuckles.

"No," she drawled, every bit of her tone indicating the opposite.

Han smirked, twisting his hand around in her grip to push his palm upwards, and cup her cheek briefly before she let him go, and his hand drifted back to her ankle. He shifted, and gave her a dry look.

"Seat could use some cushions," he grumbled.

Leia pursed her lips.

"My, you're sounding old," she teased lightly, resting the point of her elbow on her knee and cupping her cheek in her palm.

She cut her lashes at him playfully, and he gave her a defiant glare, though didn't say anything else. His shoulders pressed back into the corner, one of them nudging up against the glass of the window.

Zozy began to prance in circles, chasing his colourful tail, and Leia watched him with amusement, well aware of Han watching her. He drew his feet in a little, sitting up a bit, adjusting for comfort. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance out the window, and then he cleared his throat.

"So, you got any ideas for this room?" he asked gruffly.

Leia nodded, without looking at him for a moment.

Han gestured idly at the garden box outside the window.

"Ought to plant those seeds Tavska gave you a while back out here," he muttered. "They'd grow nice."

"Hmm," Leia murmured, turning to face him again – he meant the seeds Tavska had given her as a congratulatory gift, last year in the last few weeks of her pregnancy.

Han looked back at her. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

"Want me to hang the arallutes in here?" he asked.

She turned her hand over, resting her chin on her knuckles, instead of her palm, and afforded the room another languid look around – her focus shifting from Zozy, entertaining himself, to the sparkling sunlight bouncing off the walls.

She nodded, her lips parted slightly. The arallutes – pressed petals from the flowers her father had given her last year, as well – were kept in a delicately carved shadowbox that Sola Naberrie had given her, specifically for some such memorial purpose, she supposed.

Han started to get up, but Leia lunged forward fluidly and shook her head, having her hands.

"Leave it for now," she said – it was one of the only things still in a box, along with some other trinkets that had no place yet, or they simply hadn't been bothered to place in their appropriate decorative spots.

She sighed, tucking her shoulders in close, and shook her head a little, visibly basking in the sun.

"Let's soak this in for a little while," she murmured.

Han nodded, arching his brow somewhat sternly.

"You gotta come here," he said, gesturing to his chest.

Without protest, Leia shifted around until she was positioned in the window seat with her back to Han, resting all of her weight on him. He parted his legs, his knee drawn up and aligned against the window, the other still stretched out with his ankle digging into the floor. The movement drew Zozy's attention, and Han twitched his ankle mildly at the Mooka as Zozy launched a full-scale assault on his master's toes.

Hans lips pressed against the back of her head, and then the crown of it, his nose tickling her scalp as he breathed in and out slowly for a moment, wrapping his arm tight around her chest in a quick, comforting hug.

"Don't, y'know," he murmured. "Don't get…anxious," he warned softly. "Hasn't been that long."

Leia rested her hand on his forearm, content. It hadn't – not since they had removed all obstacles and started trying again. Not that long in some respects, yet longer, for sure, than it had taken last time. She knew Han was treading carefully, often anxious himself, walking a fine line between wanting to know where her head was, and discuss it, and yet not make her feel as if he were impatient with the process, or making demands on her, physically or emotionally.

She shook her head calmly.

"Anxious? Me?"

Han snorted softly, and nudged her jaw with his nose.

"You know what I mean," he mumbled. "Don't get discouraged."

She dipped her head down, and her lips brushed against his arm.

"I'm not discouraged," she murmured honestly, her heart racing in her chest – here they sat, in the window seat of a room she felt, in her soul, was the perfect little space to call a nursery, a room they had just implicitly agreed was exactly that, and she wanted to turn and grab him and shriek it at him, in a hoarse, half-panicked, half-excited whisper,  _Han, I think I'm pregnant – I almost know –_

Yet she refrained, for her own peace of mind, and for the sake of security. Certainty, she knew, would settle in when it was ready to settle in, as it had last time, and then a sort of lingering apprehension would likely keep her quiet a bit longer – good meditations, bright moments in the Force whispered to her that there was nothing to worry about from here on out, but she knew herself, and she knew she would wait, if only a little while, until the tangible power in her, the sinew and blood and bone, told her it would take this time.

Instead of saying anything, she watched Zozy; she smiled a little, and pressed herself closer against him, to his warmth, and his comforting scent, letting her mind drift away from that for the time being, and settle into the here and now. Han loosened his protective, single-armed hug and began running his hand up and down her arm, the other lazily massaging the back of her neck.

"Leia," he murmured.

"Hmmm?"

"This Luke thing, you sure you're up for it?" Han ventured, matter-of-fact.

"Luke thing," Leia repeated, quoting him thoughtfully. "You mean the Mara thing?" she countered.

"Kind of a semantic distinction," Han muttered.

Her head fell back against his shoulder a bit more, and she arched her neck to look up at him, amused.

" _Semantic_?"

"You're rubbin' off on me," he said, and arched a brow suggestively, "in more than the usual way. Been livin' with you too long."

"In twenty years, you'll be running for Senate," Leia teased.

"When it snows on Mustafar," Han growled, pausing to pinch her shoulder gently.

Leia shrugged him off with a short laugh, and shook her head, folding her arms in front of her loosely. She tapped her fingers against her elbows and shrugged, nodding with certainty.

"I am up for it," she said easily. "I don't think I have much lingering frailty, when it comes to - anything, really," she said. "It's all scar tissue. Tough, leathery scar tissue," she muttered.

"Not sayin' you're frail," Han said. "Jus' don't want you under any pressure to deal with her before you're ready," he explained. "I figure I put some of that pressure on you - "

"So you want to back down now, when we have her set to come to dinner in a few days?" Leia interrupted wryly.

Han pressed a sheepish kiss to the back of her head. He shrugged. Leia shifted a little, resting her shoulder back against the window so she could tilt her head, and look at him more easily.

"Rest easy," she soothed.

He shrugged again.

"I dunno, it's a new place," he said, gesturing one arm out roughly. "Yeah, it's important you meet her, so it stops bein' this lurking thing with you and Luke, but I guess it threw me off a little you wanted her to be one of the first we have over. Figured it'd be Bail or Winter."

"They've all been in and out and over here throughout the moving process," Leia said dismissively. "It's nothing new to them - housewarming doesn't have to be a grand affair."

"I don't want bad memories muckin' up this place right at the start," Han said warily.

"It's fitting, Han," she countered. "I don't want the first time I meet her to be at your retirement gala; I'd rather it be here," she explained, shifting again. He brought his leg up and stretched it out on the window seat, and she draped hers over it, leaning back into the window and facing them, her own legs twisted up and tangled in his lap, still bracing against his shoulder.

She shrugged, hesitating as she gathered her thoughts. She looked at Zozy for a moment - he had managed to pluck one of his feathers, and was smugly shaking it in his teeth, prancing back and forth around the room.

"Winter put it in a very simple way," she said. "Meeting Luke's girlfriend is a mild thing, really, in the grand scheme of it all," she said. "She has a past, and I have - I certainly have my hang-ups about it, and in some ways, I wonder if Luke's involvement is an extension of his trying to save Vader." Leia frowned, waving her hand - "Unfinished business, I mean. To hear him tell it, Vader returned to the light, but he died after a single good choice, and without time for rehabilitation of the soul - which I have my own opinions about," she trailed off darkly. "He loves her, though - that much I can see very clearly. And as warm and friendly as he is, I don't think Luke is cavalier with his heart in terms of romantic attachment so, for him - it's time I make the effort he has always made for me."

Han nodded, resting his palm on her thigh.

"It's liberating to decide not to give a damn what the political ramifications are," Leia noted. "If there are questions about her via the press' unholy fascination with the social and private lives of me and my family, they'll go unanswered for the sake of Luke's privacy and the apparatus can fuck off if they want to imply that by associating with a former assassin, I'm still on track to usurp a place of power in the galaxy as a new evil Empress."

Han snorted.

"That still a thing that's goin' around?"

"It always will be, on some front," Leia said dryly. She lifted her shoulders. "It's faded into the oblivion of things that have been said about me that don't  _hurt_  anymore," she murmured. "I'm a far cry from the Emperor and the things about me that are very much like Anakin Skywalker are tempered by the choices I make," she said confidently.

Leia was quiet for a moment.

"I'm not afraid of the dark side anymore, Han," she murmured simply. "It has no power that I refuse to give it."

Han kissed her behind her ear.

"I think that is precisely why I can confront it in Mara," Leia said. "I trust Luke's word, and Luke swears she's on a path of redemption and betterment and that she's never been one of those people who is just rotten at the core, so I should extend a hand of support to her, and to that process. It seems - hypocritical, even nonsensical, because I could never forgive Vader," Leia trailed off for a moment, pensive, her lips pressed tightly for a moment. "But perhaps in the back of my mind I see the inability to absolve him as a flaw in my capacity for compassion, and accepting Mara is a proxy for that."

She licked her lips.

"Something. I don't know. Or I'm tired of holding on to grudges and exacting punishment and I want to move forward in my personal and public politics - Sith knows I work with plenty of former Imperials, or Imperial sympathizers, that stayed in power out of sheer dumb luck, or out of Mon's fear of destabilizing certain systems with installment of new foreign leaders."

Her hands fidgeted in her lap, and she sighed.

"I've done the trials, the sentencing, the near-executions," she said, "maybe it's slowly becoming time for a gentler reconciliation, starting at the interpersonal level. The aftermath of the war is getting farther away, and holding the losers in a choke-hold forever will ensure it's passed down to children who never have the chance to know any better, and inevitably breed resentment potent enough to bring the democracy down on our heads again. I do not want to see a rehash of tyranny in my lifetime."

Han tilted his head at her, and Leia blew out air through her lips, arching her brows.

"Remove all the intricacies of it and the bottom line is I want my brother to be happy, and that's the core question of the choice I had to make when it comes to extending my hand to Mara, or not," she said bluntly. "I want him to have what I have."

She reached out to run her hand down Han's shoulder, and he looked at her intently, his jaw relaxed, and thoughtful. She smirked.

"Have I put you to sleep?" she asked.

"No," he grunted. "I was listenin' to all that," he insisted. "You know you got more compassion than most people I know," he added.

"It's one of the toughest traits to maintain," she admitted.

"Hardly does anyone any good," Han drawled, waving his hand vaguely at his back - where scars memorialized the consequences of his own compassion. His remark was tongue-in-cheek, however, and he sat forward, grinning at her lazily. "You amaze me, Sweetheart," he growled proudly.

"You caught me in a moment of bliss," she retorted. "I don't always feel so charitable towards the idea of her," she sniffed. "It's an intermittent struggle. Though there  _is_  a difference between an idea, and a flesh-and-blood woman."

"You're right," Han said bluntly, "and you got to do it for Luke. S'his turn."

"I very well may hate her still," Leia said mildly.

Han snorted - somehow, he doubted that when it was all said and done, Leia would hate the woman Luke had chosen to commit to, and Han was pretty sure the kid was committed, judging by subtle clues he picked up on, informed by his own experience. Luke was intelligent, empathetic, wise for his age - his best quality was that he had shed his naivete without losing his optimism and kindness, and Han firmly believed that, regardless of any sordid past she may possess, any woman who held his heart, and whom he respected and esteemed, was worth it, and was noble, in some way or another.

"That would be a hell of a hurdle to navigate," Leia snorted to herself, lifting her hand to bite at her fingernail. "Considering Luke's apt to marry her."

"You think?" Han asked.

Leia gave him a smug, knowing look, and said nothing else - she hated to call herself an oracle, but she had a feeling, and so much more often these days, she trusted her feelings.

Zozy scampered over, feather poking out of his mouth, and aggressively nudged both Leia's and Han's legs, staring at them expectantly. Leia lunged forward and took the feather from his mouth, holding it in her palm, and then blowing it into the air. Zozy caught it, pleased, and darted off to entertain himself again, this time trotting out into the hall.

"He's going to get lost again," Leia sang.

"Good," Han retorted.

"Why do you insist on acting like you dislike Zozy?  _You_  brought him home," Leia teased, leaning forward with her lips pursed - she eyed Han closely, daring him to lie to her. He said nothing, and pointedly ignored her glare, until she relented, and leaned back a bit. "If nothing else, meeting Mara prior to her public appearance with Luke affords me the luxury of arming myself well against whispers, questions, et cetera," she said coolly. "Though if anything detracts more than an iota of attention from you, there will be hell to pay."

Han groaned, rolling his eyes dramatically - Leia looped her hand arm through his, and smirked. At the end of the day, his retirement ceremony was to be fairly low-key, and befittingly Han Solo. Leia had been correct in assuming that the elites of the New Republic - all still the old guard that had been leaders of the Rebellion - wanted Han's service recognized and awarded appropriately; even those who disliked his scurrilous background, and his elevation of status via marriage to Leia, felt he deserved significant honors. She had arranged it so that the posh, stiff-necked military traditions were honored in that there was to be a brief Corellian-style honor ceremony, followed by a banquet and gala in the loosest sense of the words - and the guest list was strictly vetted, and much more geared towards personal guests than any political invitees.

"You'll enjoy it," Leia assured him smugly. "Think less charity fundraiser, more...our wedding reception."

"Hmm," Han grunted. "That mean you're gonna sit on my lap, drink a little too much champagne...?"

"It's a fair bet that your terribly effective soldiering has earned you an hour or so of your wife on your lap at the gala," Leia agreed -  _champagne, well, we'll see_ , she thought to herself.

"All I want is Jan to give me a curtsy," Han said seriously.

"You hate when aristocrats and other officials give you deference," Leia countered pointedly - Han had never quite gotten used to the protocols that demanded he be bowed to, or in some other way feted, by association with Leia's title.

"Yeah," Han agreed mildly, "'cept when I know it's the ones who hate doin' it 'cause it's me," he gloated.

Leia smiled primly, and he looked her up and down appreciatively.

"You picked a gown yet?"

Leia gave him a stern look.

"You know the rules."

Han made a whining noise. He knew, from experience, that when Leia became secretive about a particular gown, it generally meant the ensemble in question was going to make a wreck of him, and the anticipation made her tactic all the more delightfully frustrating. He'd never had as much of a liking for evening wear until he met Leia, but she had a way of wearing it - always choosing styles that flattered her to a perfect fault - that almost made him prefer Leia clad in gowns to Leia naked.

He leaned over to kiss her, reaching up to cup her jaw in his hand and press her back into the window a little. Leia's hands moved over his arms to his shoulders, snuggling closer, tilting her head into the kiss. From down the hall - perhaps even down the stairs - they both heard Zozy start chirping, loud and insistent, with a curious edge to the tone. Han turned his head around moodily, and shot a glare at the doorway.

"He found an empty room," Leia whispered impishly.

Han nodded, extricating himself a little - preparing once again to embark on a Zozy rescue expedition.

"I suppose we ought to fill them," she sighed, shrugging lightly, and Han grinned in agreement as he stood, rolling his shoulders to stretch out his neck and back. He looked down at her for a moment, wordless; his brow furrowed tightly, lips fixed in a small, unreadable frown. Leia arched her eyebrows under the scrutiny, a little indignant, thinking him somehow - suddenly, inexplicably - dissatisfied with her, until he shook himself a little, and cleared his throat.

"You look good," he said huskily, a hint, the barest hint, of consternation in his voice - she looked no different than usual, other than the fact that she looked - so good, there in the window. It may have been the sun, or the unbridled contentment she was obviously feeling. "Real good," he added.

Leia arched a brow.

"Don't I always?" she flirted.

Han shrugged, bending to kiss the corner of her mouth.

"S'different," he mumbled, half to himself, before he straightened, touched her lightly under the chin, and turned on his heel with a grumble, following the sounds of Zozy's blithely investigative chirping.

Leia turned to look out the window again, breathing in deeply. She reached for the latches on the window, and opened it slightly to let in soft gusts of air, blinking when it rushed over her face and whipped up flyaway strands of hair. The garden box just outside the window - it was certainly a good place to sow the seeds Tavska had given her, and the room was the right place for arallutes in a shadowbox; it would not be long at all before she could confirm her suspicions, and if - when - she did, it would timing so pristine she was almost giddy; an alignment of stars the likes of which she hadn't experienced since she snatched the Death Star schematics from the Empire's iron fist.

* * *

Luke Skywalker was presently muddling through one of the greatest challenges of his - still relatively – young life, that being living, for the first time, with a woman he was in quite the serious, committed relationship with. Or rather – sharing quarters for an extended period of time – or – well, he was not particularly keen on how he should be defining their current situation; Mara had arrived on Coruscant some weeks ago, somewhat far in advance of her inaugural meeting with Leia.

He had welcomed that arrival; their relationship was so firmly rooted in long-distances, travel, periodic separations – put simply, it was fraught with unconventional norms, and Luke liked the idea of something purer, something like this – having her around day and night, accessible, and there to merely sit with, or talk to about things mundane or nonsensical.

Not that Mara had interest in many topics that were nonsensical, or so he had thought, until precisely an hour and a half ago, when he had come home to his usually fashion-averse girlfriend standing damn near naked in his sitting room, critically examining a slew of evening gowns.

Luke had spent the better part of his time home attempting to navigate how he was supposed to react to this uncommon behavior – offer to help, ignore it, intervene, laugh - he had asked her what the hell she was doing, and been treated to the crisp, icy remark of –

"I would think that is obvious,  _Lu_."

\- at which point he retreated into the back bedroom to have a 'fresher, as he'd been out rooting around in the rubble of a destroyed sector on one of the lower levels, having heard it was once a hidden laboratory for Jedi sciences.

He thought it obvious that she was selecting a dress; however, the more he lingered on it, the more he wasn't exactly sure what she was doing at all – he'd never seen Mara wear a dress, though he supposed she'd worn them at court events when she served the Emperor. In fact, the idea of Mara in a dress seemed ludicrous, though he was world-wise enough not to tell her that.

She had seemed restless, her tone irritable, and he focused intently on reading her emotions, which she seemed amenable to, as she wasn't shielding them. Among the many things there were to get used to in terms of co-habitation was how much he should afford her privacy, and when, and where – he figured he could ask, but then he was unsure if she considered them to be living together, and didn't want to attack her with that conversation too soon.

As it were, he was standing idly in his kitchen, peering warily into the living area where she was sitting on the sofa, a dark, thoughtful expression on her face. Her lip was drawn into her teeth, and her hair tumbled wildly over both shoulders, and she was wearing nothing more than plain black underwear and a red bra, an ensemble that had Luke caught in a painful circuit of mental gymnastics as he tried to figure out if he had the luxury of appreciating her looks, because she was here, and available, or if he ought to keep his eyes to himself and leave her be as this was her home, too, right now, and she might not want the attention.

He was still parsing that out – he might have to ask Han about certain finer details of living with a woman – when Mara turned her head and gave him a sharp look.

"I've never been faced with such a difficult decision, and I've killed multiple people on warrants of questionable morality," she said bluntly.

Luke raised his eyebrows.

Mara flicked her wrist and waved her hand around, gesturing to the gowns – Luke had no idea where they had all come from; he certainly didn't have them lying around in the closet. It wasn't as if she could have rummaged around and found them, like a stray sock or brassier that might have been left from another woman – Luke was almost positive he'd never slept with someone who wore an evening gown. Except Gaerial Captison, but he had stayed at her place.

His eyes lifted a little as he followed that train of thought, distracted for a moment.

Mara pointed to a sunset-coloured gown.

"I bought that on Paxer's Row. It cost as much as Xizor Sizhran once paid me to seduce – "

"Mara," Luke griped.

"Oh, right. I forgot."

"I'd prefer you break the habit of comparing the cost of things to your contract kills and contract escapades before you blithely do it at Leia's dinner table and come out with the name of one of her old friends."

Mara pressed her lips together, humming softly.

"I've never murdered an Alderaanian," she muttered. She lifted her chin, standing to go examine the sequined beading on a white gown, a frown etched on her face.

Luke watched her bend over, and closed his eyes, lifting his head to the ceiling. He turned to take a carbonated juice from his icebox.

"Why aren't you wearing clothes?" he asked.

"I've been trying on various gowns all evening," Mara retorted, folding her arms and turning around.

She blinked at him for a moment, and Luke raised his juice, silently asking her if she wanted one. She shook her head, silently demurring, and jerked her head, indicating he should come closer. Luke did, and she moved closer to give him a kiss on the corner of his mouth, her body briefly molding into his side as she pressed close and welcomed him with a hug.

Luke slid an arm around her waist briefly, squeezed her tightly, and kissed her cheek, closing his eyes and smiling.

"You've been trying on gowns?" he repeated, a bit smugly.

He sat down on the sofa and leaned back, stretching one leg out to nudge her ankle.

"Have you been possessed?" he snorted.

Mara folded her arms coolly, and faced him; more intimidating in nothing but underwear and pale skin than any fully armored soldier Luke had ever faced in combat. He hid his smirk a little, and tried to look innocent. Satisfied with that reaction, Mara turned back to the host of dresses.

"I dislike dresses," she remarked caustically. "Difficult to run in – the train always tangles up in your feet."

"I hate when that happens," Luke said seriously.

"A man's invention," Mara went on, "created to make it harder for women to run away – heels, too."

"You don't own a single pair of  _flat_  boots, Mara," Luke reminded her.

"My boots don't have  _heels,_  they have concealed  _razors,"_  she retorted.

Luke arched his brows. He shrugged.

"I've seen Leia run in a dress. Fight in one, too," he said.

"I doubt it's her armor of choice," Mara sniffed, throwing a look over her shoulder. She jutted her knee out and pointed at a red dress.

"You like that colour?" she asked.

"For what?" Luke asked.

"For a  _dress_ , Luke, what does it look like?"

Luke gave her an alarmed look.

"A dress for what?" he amended, exasperated. "To meet Leia? You don't have to wear a dress, it's just dinner - at her apartment – why would you – she won't be wearing a dress," he protested.

"Not for dinner," Mara fired back, "for this gala," she said the word as if it were entirely unfamiliar to her, "for Solo's retirement."

The necessity of the gowns clicked into place – but Luke still looked at her with some consternation.

"You're going to wear a dress?" he asked. "I figured you'd just wear one of those jumpsuits you have, the sleek ones, with the capes."

Mara gave him a withering look. She stepped back, and sat down on the sofa, leaning back to rest her elbow on the backrest, and glare at Luke intently.

"Dresses are worn to galas," she said tightly, "that much, I learned at the court – and I would prefer not to stand out at this event," she said.

Luke gave a noncommittal mumble.

"I intend to respect the nature of the thing," Mara went on.

Luke lifted his hand to sip his drink, unsure of exactly what was coming. He furrowed his brow, feeling oddly nervous, and then turned his head, looking her up and down, then wincing, and looking back up at her face, his neck flushed.

"Am I allowed to look at you?" he asked dryly.

She arched a brow.

"Are you –  _what_?"

Luke nodded at her.

"You're not wearing anything, it's very – alluring," he told her, "but I was unsure if it wasn't for me right now, you know, while you're doing your own thing."

Mara gave him a funny look.

"You can look at me whenever you want," she said, snorting.

Luke frowned stubbornly.

"It's just, I know women don't always look alluring for men," he said. Dansra Beezer had told him that once, while complaining in a fury that some of the men in her cadre seemed to think that when she exercised in minimal clothing, it was for their benefit, rather than because she was trying not to get overheated in the summer.

"You respect is duly noted," Mara said, rolling her eyes. "Stop saying 'alluring' and focus your intelligent empathy on the subject at hand."

Luke bit back a whine – he had no experience with the subject at hand; for events such as these, either Rouge told him what to wear, or he showed up in his signature robes, a bit dusty, but looking presentable enough – as presentable, if not more so, than Han, in most cases.

"I don't have any intelligent empathy about this subject," Luke said slowly. "I don't even know – what this subject is," he added in a mumble, exasperated again.

"My dress for the retirement gala," Mara growled.

She tossed her hair, and looked around, her eyes lingering on a black dress – she was very fond of the black dress; it was the first she'd found, and what she originally intended to go with, until her recently returned conscience, teaming up with a sense of femininity and insecurity she thought she had long since murdered, had induced her to instead go on a shopping spree expensive enough to feed a family of moisture farmers for perhaps half a year.

"I shouldn't wear black, I assume," Mara said curtly.

Luke said nothing,

"White?"

Luke arched his eyebrows slightly, but still said nothing.

"I suppose white might come off as mocking," Mara drawled slowly, her eyes narrowing.

She turned her head, glaring at him yet again.

"Any input, Lu?" she demanded dangerously. "She's  _your_  sister."

Luke's eyes twitched, as he'd been trying, quite aggressively, to deflect this conversation, or at least avoid being directly asked for input. He shrugged.

"Mara, you were the Emperor's personal assassin. Don't act like you can't dress yourself."

He felt her glare narrowing, and winced to himself. He wondered if Leia ever harassed Han about what she should wear, and then decided that was likely a hard no. Han was probably smart enough to give one dumb suggestion one single time, and Leia never asked him again.

Though, he also supposed Leia had been specifically trained in dressing herself for these kind of events since about the time she could walk by herself, and that might well be getting under Mara's skin.

"What  _colour_  would you suggest?" Mara asked narrowly.

Luke turned to look at her dryly, and appraised her, thinking it over.

"Pink," he suggested flippantly, saying so more to give an answer, than out of any real preference or opinion.

Mara looked at him as if he'd said the most idiotic thing she had ever heard.

"Skywalker," she snapped. "I'm a redhead."

With that, she got up, and retreated to the back bedroom, and Luke let out a sigh of relief, shaking his head as he tipped back his drink to finish it – the pressure of that conversation had somehow dehydrated him, and elevated his blood pressure, which was amusing in some ways, and –

He quickly lowered his juice when she came back in, having put on one of his t-shirts and tied her hair back into a loose, messy tail. She stretched her arms out, and collapsed on the sofa again, curling one leg up and facing him, her lips pursed tensely. She held up one hand, and gestured to her face stiffly.

"My complexion does not allow for pinks, yellows, or," she hesitated, "lavenders," she decided dryly, eyeing Luke sharply. "Take note."

He nodded, arching one brow. He glanced at his juice, and then leaned forward to set it on the floor next to his feet, folding his arms as he rested back again.

"It's not like you to stress over what to wear," he pointed out flatly. "It's eerie."

She sighed, her lips pursing again – and Luke figured she was hyper focused on this as a way to distract herself from the more pressing matter of their upcoming one-on-one – or, to be more accurate, couple-on-couple – dinner with Leia and Han. The intimacy of her first meeting with Leia – who she had expressed vocal aversion to on multiple occasions, for one reason or another – was a far more imposing prospect than blending in to a multitude at a raucous party for the infamous Han Solo's retirement.

"The majority of what makes up a first impression is aesthetic," Mara said levelly. "I am attempting to strike a balance between losing myself, in bending over backwards to impress or charm your sister, and exercising a respectful amount of deference to the fact that she has real reason to be put off by my background."

Luke nodded, shrugging a little.

"That's fair - I appreciate that, and I've no doubt she will," he said. "When it comes to fashion, though, I've never seen Leia be...catty," he said slowly, wincing at his own terminology. "I mean, I've seen her verbally eviscerate someone who  _denigrated_  another Senator's gown, but I've never seen her judge someone's character on their outfit choice."

Mara sniffed.

"I'd rather not be gawked at, either, if I appear out of place," she muttered, introversion showing itself - she was used to a behind the scenes sort of life, and she was well aware she might be an object of interest or fascination at a public event, particularly as Luke, despite his healthy involvement with women in private, had not ever attended an event with an official date.

Luke hesitated, and then began again:

"You don't have to charm Leia," he said. "Or bend over backwards. She chose to be open to this. She made that decision, and when she makes decisions, she's very firm," he said. "It's not as if she's being dragged to the table kicking and screaming, she's making her own effort for my sake, and for my reasons - as she should," he noted firmly, "and Leia's surprisingly good at suppressing personal biases in moments where she knows she needs to exercise extreme caution to be objective."

Luke snorted.

"That is her job, after all."

Mara made a rather noncommittal noise.

"I don't think she  _wants_  to hate you," Luke reflected mildly. "Leia's - wary of the idea that she might not like someone I love, but she's not on a mission to hate you. Her initial reaction, and her adjustment to the idea - that's not totally uncalled for, not unnatural. That she's made an effort to overcome - "

"And if she does hate me?" Mara interrupted. "If she can't get past - my past?"

Her expression was hard, and Luke didn't begrudge her that, because he knew her question had multiple layers of complexity. It wasn't just a wary, apprehensive –  _what if your sister hates me?_  It was –  _what will_ you _do, if your sister hates me?_  It demanded an answer in the fairest of ways, because Mara had taken more emotional risks than she had ever taken in her life with Luke, and though his philosophies on the Light would likely stick with her forever, she couldn't imagine how she would feel if he was given an ultimatum by the one other woman who held his respect and esteem as highly as Mara did – and who had come  _before_  Mara.

It was sometimes odd, to fancy herself in competition with his blood relative, but that was the crux of it, sometimes; Luke obviously had no romantic inclinations towards Leia, but his family bond was damn near invincible – a result of having for so long searched for answers regarding family, and for so long feeling lost and only partially complete.

Luke did not hesitate, so much as consider her thoughtfully – because he had to be fair to the both of them in acknowledging –

"I think that would be unimaginably painful," he said quietly, "to have it all come to a head and  _that_  be the result," he said honestly – and it would be; if after all the healing and recovery Leia had gone through, and the arguments and philosophical differences their relationship as brother and sister had suffered to get to this point, where she was willing and eager, in some subtle way, to meet his girlfriend – that would feel like failure, and he couldn't imagine it.

Luke swallowed hard.

"I don't know what to say definitively about what I'd do if Leia  _hates_  you," he said. "I've never been in any situation like that, except, maybe," he trailed off, trying to think, trying to compare it. "Well, she hates Vader, yet she still has a relationship with me – but he's dead. Uhh," Luke paused. "There was a brief period where she maintained pretty loudly and aggressively that she hated Han, but she still was nice to me and put up with me being friends with – "

Mara was giving him a withering look.

Luke flushed.

"Fine, she never hated Han," he amended. "She  _did_  hate being around him, though."

"Well I doubt you want this to go the same direction that did," Mara pointed out.

"Yeah, please don't sleep with my sister."

Mara shrugged.

"She's not my type."

Luke snorted.

"At the very least, she politely and effectively works with people she dislikes in the Senate all the time," he said logically.

Mara sighed, her head rolling back against the sofa.

"Yes," she murmured. "That sort of diplomacy does not work within the confines of family, Luke – I don't know much about family, but that much is painfully obvious; it's just common sense. Think of the strain it would put on her, on me, on your relationships with both of us – "

"I  _am_  thinking of that strain; I get it," Luke said flatly. "There was dissonance enough when Ruwee Naberrie and Bail Organa were essentially firm in their resentment of the other, and that lasted a mere handful of days."

He sat forward a bit, resting his elbows on his knees, and rubbing his jaw tensely, a thoughtful frown on his face.

"The issue with this is – I have hope. I'm optimistic," he said honestly. "I don't think she's going to hate you, not when it comes down to it – and I'm narcissistic enough to think that at least some of that is her being unable to hate someone she knows I admire. And Mara, I've told you before, you'll like her – I know you will."

He ran a hand back through his hair, and shrugged.

"I can't unilaterally declare how I'm going to feel, or what I'm going to do, if the verdict is that Leia hates Mara Jade," he said bluntly, his expression softening earnestly, "but – I can tell you her feelings won't ever make me hate you," he said quietly.

He leaned back, and leaned over, reaching up to place his hand on her shoulder. He slid it up her neck, to her jaw, and to her cheek, his fingers slipping into her wild mane of loosely pulled back hair, picking strands out slowly.

"Mara, you're my whole world," he said intently. "You're my private calling. You're the iconic love story," he laughed gently. "People love more than one person in their life, sure, but everyone only has  _one_  that's good enough for the history books."

He tilted his head.

"It would be devastating to have something separating two significant aspects of my life," he said honestly. "I don't know how I'd navigate it. It might kill me. Losing  _you_  would kill me," he said. "If anything, you'd leave me over the stress of having to muddle through a nightmare like that, but I am not – I  _will_  not - give you up for Leia's comfort."

He smiled, arching his eyebrows.

"You're  _my_  comfort."

Mara's lashes fluttered, and she closed her eyes, tilting her head closer to rest her forehead against his jaw. She took a deep breath, silent in the wake of his words – generally, Luke wasn't so effusive; despite how aggressively forthcoming she was – with him – with her own emotions regarding their relationship, he was often less verbose, and more contemplative; hesitant even.

"It doesn't ease your stress at all that I have a good feeling about this?" Luke murmured.

"In general, I trust your feelings," Mara murmured, "but this time, they involve the complexity of someone else's, and that I cannot trust."

Luke nodded, and moved closer, sliding his arm behind her shoulder for a hug – that, he supposed, was fair. Leia had plenty of mercurial moments, and plenty of instances of unpredictability, but he was calm, and resolute, in his faith in her to come around. She had approached  _him_ ; she had taken it upon herself to ask if he might like to bring Mara to Han's retirement party, and if Mara would be interested in meeting her. Luke had very minimally questioned her motives, but he sensed they were pure, and determined, if a little hesitant.

He might feel less confident if he had pestered Leia, and cajoled her, and made demands that she reach out to Mara, but that was not the case – and furthermore, Luke had pressured her regarding the Naberries, and that had turned out well in the end. The dynamic here was different, given Mara's intimate connection to the inner circle of Imperial power, yet Leia seemed to have taken to heart some of the things Luke argued in Mara's favor – that she had faced a difference in privilege, and had come to seize responsibility for her past actions, and detach herself from the darkness.

At the core, Mara's story was a survivor's story, a combat soldier's story, one of impossible odds, deeply painful self-assessment, and reckoning with a haunted past – and if nothing else  _that_  Luke was sure Leia could relate to.

* * *

There was little left to do but wait, and the act of waiting alone could sometimes prove a risky business. Given her experiences in the past - waiting, just waiting for something to happen, whether it be a political decision, a decisive battle, or her own execution - Leia knew that the simple psychological effect of anticipating a thing could tie a person in knots, make her anxious, sour, manic, jumpy, catatonic - all, or none, of the above, depending. She was, currently, as she waited for Luke to arrive for dinner, Mara in tow - or rather, alongside him as an equal, Leia was sure she was no meek woman - attempting to linger somewhere in the realm of cool, collected and, if anxious, quietly so. She strove to maintain an internal equilibrium that managed her understandable anxiety over meeting this woman, yet allowed her to still project the sort of unshaken, icy grace she was somewhat infamous for in the Senate.

 _Icy_  was perhaps the wrong word. She did not particularly intend to come off as icy - she was merely so accustomed to being referred to as  _icy,_  cold, unemotional, or some other variant that she often considered her public demeanor that way without much thought. She had fluctuated over the years, alternately being intensely bothered by others' perceiving her as emotionless and hard, and finding it safer that they considered her that way - stronger, even. Recently, she cared less altogether, not because she had lost interest in the presentation of her public self, but because she knew that no one would ever truly know her the way her close friends and family did, and while perception mattered to a certain extent - for the purposes of political success - popularity was suggestive, and the vast majority would think and believe what they wanted to believe about her, facts be damned.

More aptly, she wanted to make a good - welcoming - impression on Mara without simpering; she wanted to comport herself confidently, without surrendering to some wary tendencies she had regarding the meeting, and Mara's background. She was conscious that she was factoring in a significant amount of political foresight and power strategies into this very personal meeting, yet she couldn't help it - it was part self-preservation, and part a need to assert herself as accepting, yes, but with justifiable reservations. She was sure - at least she hoped - that some of the same mental gymnastics were going on in Mara's head. From some of the more subtle things Luke had said, Leia knew his girlfriend - that term seemed so juvenile, and simplistic, when applied to adults, and attempting to encompass the complexities of relationships - had her own reservations, steeped in insecurities and bitterness, about the meeting.

Leia wanted to be - warm, and personable, but fair, and appropriately reserved - a posture she was having an unusually difficult time pulling together, as it brought back memories of the way she'd acted around her father when he had first returned, more like a cordial acquaintance than a daughter. Things were different now - she was better, emotionally, and Luke functioned as the perfect sort of social lubrication, kind and effusive as he was, yet she still had her qualms - and on top of that, she was plagued - or rather, blessed - with a simmering, soul-deep, content triumph, a feeling she hadn't yet spoken aloud about. It was expressing itself in an elevated mood, and a tendency to smile more than usual, and that burgeoning effervescence - fairly unusual in Leia - was a benefit, in that it made her feel forgiving, and hopeful, and a drawback, in that it was hampering her ability to remain at least marginally aloof.

With Zozy perched on his haunches on the 'fresher sink - he was clingy, and anxious, because he sensed he was about to be locked in the bedroom - she checked her reflection a final time, reviewing herself. She had chosen an understated look - muted make-up, save for mascara, which she always favored dark - her hair pulled into a crisp, high tail with a complex braid wrapped around it as the fastener, and finely curled wisps 'escaping' in a fixed way. She was barefoot - it was her own home, after all - and dressed in comfortable white leather leggings, and a high-necked, sleeveless violet blouse; it was relaxed from her ostentatious senate wear, though not completely so, and the combination of her signature colour, white, with a darker, louder colour seemed to fit appropriately.

Zozy twitched his tail, and lifted his snout, presenting her with a feather he'd evidently plucked from his tail. His ears twitched happily, though a little suspicious, as he offered the gift, and Leia took it, wrinkling her nose affectionately and bending forward to give him a kiss between the eyes. She examined the feather - it was one of his bluer ones, for now, though they all faded to an opal white after molting. She tilted her head at it and Zozy pawed at her, drawing a smile.

"You still have to say in the bedroom," she warned, clicking her tongue - she had thought it might be acceptable to confine him to the upper level of the penthouse, but Han had forgotten to buy a gate to fix at the top of the stairs, so the master bedroom would be Zozy's domain for the night. Leia was respectful of others in regards to her beloved pet - she had no idea what Mara's animal proclivities were, and so she wouldn't loose the mooka on her immediately.

Zozy whined at her skeptically, at least pretending he understood.

She set the feather aside for later - she was collecting them for pillows - and leaned forward to draw a nail under her eye, wiping away flecks of mascara she imagined were there. Han came into the 'fresher behind her, placing his hands on her hips to hold her still as he moved past and flung open one of the cabinets. He rummaged around for a minute, glancing at her, and then sort of picked something up, put it back down, and glanced at her again as he started to shut the little door.

Leia flicked her eyes up at him through her lashes, her lips turning up in a little bit of amusement.

"Need something?" she asked lightly.

He gave a vague shrug.

"Looking for something?" she prodded, cocking an eyebrow. "An excuse to check on me?"

Han folded his arms and gave her a withering look.

"Well, why're you in here takin' so long?" he retorted sheepishly. "I poured you a glass of wine half an hour ago."

"I didn't ask you to," Leia said mildly. She stepped back from the sink and cocked her hip against it, smiling. "I'm alright, Han, I was just looking at myself," she said honestly. She reached up and touched a tendril of the hair framing her face. "This one wouldn't stay curled right."

"Hmm," Han grumbled. "I thought you'd changed your mind about all this and crawled under the bed to hide."

"That's preposterous. I'd hide in a closet."

He grinned, and unfolded his arms, stepping forward and running his hands over her shoulders. He looked past her, meeting her eyes in the mirror, and then bent to press a kiss to her shoulder, her neck, and her cheek.

"This colour looks nice on you," he murmured, brushing his nose against her cheek. "Like your hair like this," he added, drawing a hand up to her hair and brushing the loose edges of it with his fingers. He tugged gently on it. "It's easy to grip."

"Behave," Leia admonished.

"C'mon," he coaxed. "Come have this drink. Take the edge off."

She tossed her head a little, pursing her lips. She hesitated, and then shook her head.

"I want the edge," she demurred - she also wasn't keen on alcohol in the first couple of weeks; Dr. Mellis wasn't a purist, but last time she had mentioned to wait until the latter months, and then have red wine, only sparingly.

She looked at him through her lashes, biting her lip, struck again with the urge to just blurt it out, then and there. She was positive now, and she felt a promising sort of attachment, a peaceful surety that she wasn't sure she'd had -  _last time._ She had stumbled through the new instincts related to her first pregnancy with uncertainty and confused understanding, but now things were clearer, and she could define a stark difference; whereas with her first, she had realized she was pregnant, but the connection to her sensitivity had been too new for her to understand things deeply or implicitly - now she had more clarity. She was satisfied that this was going to take - yet still, she waited a bit, wanting to embrace that good feeling for a little longer before she let him in - and the timing coincided too well with his upcoming celebration for her to waste a memorable time to tell him.

Han kissed her cheek again and shrugged, straightening. He swept Zozy off the counter - with a mild scowl that he'd been there in the first place - and carried him into the bedroom, placing him sternly on their bed.

"You behave," Leia heard him growl, as she tapped the censor to turn the lights off in the 'fresher, and followed him out.

"S'gonna be fun," Han said loudly, pushing his hand over Zozy's rump to make him sit, preventing him from trying to get off the bed - again. "I never had a kid brother to give a hard time about his girl, so Luke's  _in_  for it," he snorted to himself. He shot Leia a wicked smirk. "Any time it starts gettin' awkward or tense, I can just bring up some embarrassing thing he did and distract everyone."

Leia arched her brows, amused.

"I hope for Luke's sake, it doesn't come to that," she remarked.

Han shrugged cheerily, pointing menacingly at Zozy.

"I'm gonna tell the stories anyway," he decided. "Sit.  _Stay,"_ he ordered. "Don't spend all night makin' that chirpin' noise that makes it sound like we torture you."

Zozy chirped loudly at Han, and Han gave him an offended, incredulous look.

"What did I _just_  say?"

Leia started laughing, and took Han's elbow, dragging him away, as Zozy wagged his tail and hopped around on the bed blithely. She pushed him out the door, shutting it behind them, and tilted her head.

"You are  _quite_  the disciplinarian," she teased. She jerked her head at the door. "Any children we have are going to rule you like," she floundered, looking for an idiom.

"Princess?" Han supplied dryly, cocking a brow. "I'll put the fear of god in them."

Leia snorted, shaking her head as they turned to head down to the lower level.

"You sound like my father," she retorted, "telling Winter if she ever snuck into the sauna pools after hours again he'd show her what the wrath of the heavens was," Leia laughed, listening to Han grumbling - "She asked him to specify what god, from what planet, would be scaring her, as she'd know better then if she could take it seriously."

Han nudged by her indignantly.

"You wait, Sweetheart," he said seriously. "We'll see who's the pushover."

Leia gave his back a mildly amused look, fairly confident it was unlikely to be her - but then again, her own father had stood firm against oppression and powerful leaders for many, many years, and then come home and completely bungled his way through stern fatherhood, leaving most of the sharper rebukes to Breha, or governesses. It was, as it turned out, highly effective - Leia expected her mother to be the kind, soft spoken one; on the rare occasions when Breha got sharp, Leia knew she had immensely messed up; and likewise, when Bail suppressed his authoritative political demeanor for that of soft, kind father, Leia had known she was much more important to him than those he presided over in the public arena.

At the foot of the stairs, she paused to see if she could hear Zozy. He wasn't making any sound yet, but he likely would when he sensed other people were here. She inhaled the scent of whatever Han was cooking - something spicy, mouthwatering - and paused, deciding whether she wanted to go into the living room, or venture into the kitchen to bug him while he cooked.

She chose the latter.

"Need an assistant?" she asked.

"Do you want them to  _like_  dinner?" Han retorted.

Leia jutted her elbow out to dig it into his ribs, and smiled a little when she spotted the lone glass of wine that he'd left on the bar - one she wouldn't be drinking. She caught her tongue between her teeth, and shuffled around behind Han, peering around him at the various items simmering on the stove before she eased back to watch him.

"Here, taste that," Han directed, plucking a rare piece of meat out of a skillet and turning to hand it to her. "Is that too spicy?"

"Is there such a thing?" Leia asked, obliging him. She closed her eyes at the taste - a really genius blend of the best Corellian spices.

"I never thought so, until your dad acted like those kebabs Coronet City style were poisoning him," Han snorted - and Coronet City styles were generally the mildest in terms of spice, as it was the city with the most tourists to cater to.

She shook her head, swallowing.

"It's good," she decided. "Something tells me she's not the type to have a weak palate."

"Are you saying Bail  _does_  have a weak palate?" Han asked with a grin.

"Well, he didn't exactly have the benefit of becoming inured to the finer aspects of Corellian spice after weeks on end of Corellian meals-ready-to-eat," she muttered, thinking of the trip to Bespin.

"We're still talking about food, right?" Han drawled slyly.

"Scoundrel," Leia said flippantly.

Han wiped his hands on his trousers and turned to her, eyeing her for a moment.

"Seems like you're in a good mood," he said gruffly. He waved his hand dramatically at her. "Y'know, in a good - mental state, 'bout this."

"I am always in a fantastic mood," Leia protested, deadpan.

Han gave her a nervous little laugh, arching a brow, and she beamed, rubbing one bare foot against the other.

"I...am," she said, shrugging. "I thought, maybe, that my optimistic outlook might fade, or I'd waver on this, but," she shook her head. "It needs to happen, and I'm - prepared."

"Excited?"

"That's a stretch," Leia admitted.

Han leaned back against the stove, careful to tuck his shirt closer to him so it didn't get near an open flame. He rested his hands behind him, tapping thumbs against the counter.

"I'm excited," he said bluntly. "Meet the gal who's got Luke all tied down?" He snorted. "That's somethin'." He smirked. "'Sides, isn't she the one who tried to kill Lando? I got to shake her hand."

"Han," Leia said, rolling her eyes. "You and Lando are friends."

"Yeah," Han agreed. "Still funny when people try to kill him," he joked.

She rolled her eyes again, and then pursed her lips ruefully.

"Tied Luke down," she quoted. "It's still odd for me to imagine Luke as a," she paused.

Han eyed her gleefully.

" _Slut_ ," he supplied.

"Not a slut," Leia said narrowly. "I'd be furious if you called Winter a slut."

"I don't mean it derogatory. It's funny when you call a guy a slut."

"It shouldn't be," Leia retorted. "It can't be funny for you and derogatory for us."

Han frowned.

"Okay - I. Yeah, sorry," he agreed. "Point taken." He hesitated thoughtfully. "Sexual butterfly," he decided, smirking roguishly.

Leia made a face. Han laughed.

"It always seemed contradictory. He's so reserved. He's never been," Leia shot Han a look. "Like  _you_."

"Me?" Han pointed to himself.

"Aggressively,  _publicly_ , sexual," Leia accused. "Luke never asked women what they were wearing under their snowsuits."

"I genuinely needed to know if you were warm enough,  _Leia_ ," Han insisted, grinning in spite of himself.

"Mmhmm," she murmured knowingly. "What I mean is - he never projected his sexuality or his interest in women, so finding out he was so cavalier with his personal life was always - odd."

Han shrugged.

"Most'a that's him respectin' their privacy, bein' on military bases in close quarters and all," he said seriously. "A lot of it's probably him, y'know, kind of not bein' able to be wild in other ways, 'cause of all his responsibility, and the Force, so he tried to keep things light and unattached in that area, 'cause it's harder to be emotionally involved."

Leia looked at him intently.

"Which is how you wanted to appear," she murmured. "As if all your entanglements were light, and unattached."

Han snorted.

"Most of 'em weren't."

"I know," Leia said promptly. "Good strategy, though," she teased. "Making me think you weren't serious enough for me to risk my affections on. It really went well for you."

"You know me," Han said, deadpan. "Insecure. Couldn't give away too much. Didn't have a damn clue what was goin' on in your head."

"Well," Leia sighed diplomatically. "Neither did I."

She smiled, nostalgic, and lifted her chin a little.

"The woman who tied Luke down," she murmured. Her brow furrowed. "What do you think she thinks of me?" she asked quietly. She knew how she felt about Mara, obviously; so did Han and, to a lesser extent, Winter and Luke. Yet other than a brief conversation she'd had with Luke last year about Mara's reluctance to associate, she had no clear understanding of the other woman's opinion, political or private.

Han grunted.

"She gets all her information from Luke, and he thinks you're the best thing that's ever happened to the galaxy," he pointed out. "She'd have to  _try_  to have a negative opinion."

Leia laughed shortly.

"There's the press," she said, thinking of all the people who deliberately developed negative opinions, based on that alone.

"Yeah, there's that," Han said dismissively, using his tone to tacitly indicate how much credit he gave the press when it came to illustration her personality, and how much store he'd set by anyone who formed their opinion based on that.

"What would you think of me, if you only had the media narrative?" she asked curiously.

"Can't be that objective," Han said honestly. "I dunno. I  _know_  you."

Leia arched a brow.

"What  _did_  you think of me the first time you met me, knowing little else?"

"Dunno if that's a fair representation, we were all about to die."

She gave him a demanding look, and Han returned it with a lopsided grin.

"Loud, annoying, rude," he started listing. "Kinda cute - "

Leia lunged forward to shake him, stopping a little at the last, and their door chimes sang as she stopped moving, leaving Han to straighten up and give her a pointed look.

"Guess we'll find out what she thinks," he said.

Leia let her hands fall to her sides somewhat lamely, nodding. She set her shoulders, turned, and then furrowed her brow, and turned back.

"Should we both go to the door? Or is that intimidating?" she asked.

"How intimidating do you think we are?" Han snorted.

"Han, that Senate intern from Chandrila  _cried_  when she met you," Leia reminded him.

"That's because I'm so good lookin', and I don't think Mara's here for that."

Leia rolled her eyes. She chewed her lip for a moment, and then crossed her arms, shaking her head.

"You go," she said. "I'll go...stand in the living room," she said.

"Sharp plan. Any strategy behind it?"

"I like the living room."

"Fair enough," Han said, smoothing his hands down his shirt to clear the wrinkles as he started forward. "Let me just get the door like your butler," he added dramatically.

"Well, you're already the cook," Leia murmured faintly, and Han turned to feign a menacing glare -

"You watch that mouth, Sweetheart, or I'll have to show you who's boss - "

Leia pretended to fan herself.

"I'm shaking," she hissed.

"You will be," Han promised, winking seductively.

She smiled, watching him saunter off to get the door, and then turned to eye the abandoned glass of wine on the counter. Well, maybe - no. She shook her head, and smoothed her hands over her own blouse, taking a deep breath, and departing the kitchen for the spacious living area. She liked that the moment of arrival had snuck up on her; it gave her less time to stew in her already complex thoughts. She'd met people she didn't get along with before - in fact, she'd met politicians whose views she starkly disagreed with, only to have dinner with them and find that personally, she liked their style. Mara was no different - Mara was a woman she had an incomplete image of, a personal bias that - perhaps Winter was right - involved designating Mara as a scapegoat for all the negative things she couldn't feel about Luke, or hadn't had the change to grapple with in a living Anakin Skywalker - and Mara deserved to be judged on her own merits.

Voices in the hall; Luke and Han only, loud and boisterous, and then she smoothed her hands over her blouse again, checking her reflection one last time in the powered down glass of the Holo. She swallowed hard and braced herself and clung to the reminder that regardless of what Mara had done for the Empire in the past, she wasn't walking around in black cloaks with red lightsabers now.

"You drink, Jade?" she heard Han ask, and was only able to decipher a muffled, female response as all three of them appeared around the corner, Luke strolling ahead and leading the way.

Beaming, her brother stopped short when he saw her, pausing only for a moment, and then sprang forward, nearly dancing on the balls of his feet. It hadn't really been long since they'd seen each other; he'd been on Coruscant for a while, fulfilling military duties and working with some minor political delegations regarding his research into once-prominent Jedi sights. His schedule did not always match up with Leia's, and lately, he'd been absorbed with Mara - at least that's what she assumed, since she had been staying on Coruscant with him.

Leia had a moment to study Mara over Luke's shoulder as he approached - she was tall; nearly as tall as Han, in fact, and for a brief moment, Leia wished she hadn't chosen to go barefoot - her height, she was always so stupidly insecure about her height, in moments when she wanted to feel strong and imposing - but before her thoughts could linger, she was aware only of Mara turning to look at her, and then Luke was a sensory distraction, obscuring her vision as he closed the gap between them.

Luke clasped her in one of his hugs, pressing close with an extra dose of support, as if to both encourage her, and thank her for the effort she was making. Leia squeezed his shoulders with equal emotion, and bit the inside of her lip when he seemed to startle a little, curious, and leaned back. He looked at her for a moment, his head cocked to the side with interest, and then grinned, his eyebrows going up. He started to speak and Leia, realizing what he had become aware of, shook her head, her heart leaping into her throat. There was a mixture of alarm and calm on her face as she shushed him, softly, under her breath -

"Don't say anything, Luke," she warned. She pursed her lips lightly, her voice staying whisper-quiet as her heart still raced. "I haven't told Han yet."

She should have realized Luke would notice instantly - he had remarked, last time, that he'd sensed something different about her, and realized what it must be after she told him she was pregnant. Similar to how she knew herself better this time, knew what to read into, and what to understand, Luke had immediately identified the subtle shifts in her presence.

He swallowed down his exclamation obediently, and nodded, equal parts thrilled for her, and curious as to why she hadn't told Han - and she seemed to read that question in his eyes, and cleared her throat gently, a small, wry smile sparkling in her eyes.

"I have a moment in mind," she assured him - and she did; she wanted a moment when he was already content, relaxed, happy, and thinking about what he was going to do next, and she knew exactly when that would be opportune.

Luke squeezed her shoulders tightly, grinning, and swayed on his feet a little, as if he could barely contain his excitement. His good will was enthusiastic, and contagious, and Leia's own mood skyrocketed, giddy with the secret knowledge, and thus buoyed by it. She pressed her palms to Luke's shoulders and turned him slightly, clearing her throat firmly, and expectantly. He looked between her, and Mara, who stood next to Han with her arms folded, waiting.

Luke held out his hand, and Mara stepped forward. Her expression was entirely unreadable, her demeanor composed, and reserved. In addition to her advantageous height, she had good looks; fine, sharp green eyes like emeralds, red hair, the sort of red that was imposing and dark, rather than light, gingery, and golden. She wore dark blue trousers tucked into dark blue boots, a loose grey blouse that looked to only have a sleeve on one side, and a faded yellow red flight jacket that appeared to be Luke's. It was an understated look similar to Leia's - aware of her good attributes, without overly accentuating them.

Han lifted his hand and jabbed a thumb at Mara.

"Luke wasn't making her up," he said, loud and light.

Luke glared at him.

"What do you - you  _saw_  her, you saw her during - !" he stopped, scowling mildly at Han for getting a reaction out him, and then he rested his hand on Mara's elbow, and gestured to her more formally, shaking his head at Han's quips and giving Leia a short, but meaningful look before he spoke again. "Leia, this is Mara Jade," he said simply.

He looked at Mara, and executed the same meaningful pause, before tilting his head at Leia.

"Mara, this is - "

"Leia Solo," Leia interrupted, giving the simplest name on her docket - though she hardly expected Luke would have given a title or anything of the sort. She held out her hand flat, palm up, peaceful, and committed, and waited for Mara to take it, or to extend her culture's greeting. Commonly, the hand extended palm up was the unassuming way to offer greeting in the political world; it did not demand a handshake, if handshakes were culturally unclean, but rather declared that the individual was weaponless, and understood the custom of greeting in itself.

Though sweet, and quaint, Leia found Luke's introduction to be a little absurd; Mara would clearly know Leia when she saw her.

Mara placed her hand on Leia's firmly, and twisted it upright, giving her the usual greeting - a handshake. Her grip was assertive, without being uncomfortable, and she held for the appropriate amount of time before releasing, and inclining her head.

"You are known as Leia Solo now?" Mara remarked - dispensing with any obligatory platitudes. Her eyes flicked sideways at Luke, just a little. "I do not believe I knew that."

"To family," Leia said cordially, and inclined her own head, "and friends."

A silence fell - one that was not necessarily uncomfortable, but one in which the two women studied each other, taking a moment to reflect, and most certainly sizing up the situation. From upstairs, one or two of Zozy's excited, yet strained, chirps echoed, and Luke turned to Han, his brow furrowed.

"Where is he?" he asked. "Why isn't he out?"

"Bedroom," Han said, gesturing at Mara and Leia. "We weren't sure if she liked animals, and he's kinda, y'know...annoying," Han explained.

Mara turned slightly.

"Thank you," she said, without acknowledging whether or not she did like animals - without giving much away at all. Then, entirely unexpectedly, she looked back to Leia, and back to Han again, the smallest crease appearing above her nose. "Is Chewbacca here?" she asked.

Han arched a brow. He shook his head.

"Shame," Mara said, deadpan. "I had heard he was a bit of a war hero."

There was a faint smile on her lips, and Han shot a narrow look at Luke, glaring at him.

"Did you make Chewie the star of all my stories again?" he demanded.

"Chewie  _is_  the star of all your stories," Luke said innocently.

Han glowered, and pointed a finger at Mara.

"You, come get a drink," he said, with his effortless charm. "You wanna hear war stories? I'll tell you - can't trust that kid, the Rogue Squadron glued his ass to his flight seat once - that's not an exaggeration - " Han beckoned to Mara, and she lowered her head a little, accepting the invite - and Leia supposed she saw it for what it was, a moment to give her some respite, to take her own edge off, and to let Luke and Leia have their own moment, before the evening got into the full swing of things, and began to embed itself into their history.

Luke watched Han whisk her away, and then turned eagerly to Leia.

"It's silly to ask you want you think after an interaction that minimal but - what do you think?" he demanded.

Leia's response was level.

"She doesn't look like quite the monster I was imagining."

Luke snorted.

" _You_  don't look like a threat at all until there's a blaster in your hand," he noted.

Leia smiled placidly, her shoulders relaxing.

"This will go well, Luke," she said calmly, surprising herself a little - but her words were honest, and prophetic. She did not want to hate Mara, she did not want to be estranged from Luke, and in the past, she had found that mindset was very often half the battle - in so many cases, people could make themselves see the bad in anything, make themselves hate  _anything._ Leia was sure there were qualities about Mara that she could hate - but she was resolved not to see only those qualities, and to dwell instead on all the reasons that Luke trusted his faith, and his heart, with her.

"It  _will_ ," Luke agreed emphatically. He paused for only a brief moment, letting that positivity settle in, before he seized her hand enthusiastically again, his face lighting up. He glanced behind him to check that they were alone, and jumped up once, purely excited. "You're going to have a  _baby_!" he celebrated.

She bit her lip and clasped his hand tightly in both of hers, surreptitiously looking over his shoulder before joining in the private moment of joy. Her eyes sparkled, and she nodded.

"It's going to take this time," she said, in a relieved rush. "I can feel it."

He nodded at her jubilantly, and Leia, happy to revel privately for a moment, felt confident in her own assessment of how the rest of the night would go. She doubted it would be without its tense or awkward moments - no burgeoning relationship with these kind of complexities was - but she was more than capable of handling them without a breakdown or any of the stunted, damaging emotional ruts of some of her harder days, and with such - such new and awe-inspiring challenges on the horizon,  _this_  she could handle with all the same grace and deference Luke had so often before afforded her.

* * *

Leia considered the evening to be going well. As far as messy family affairs could go, this one was certainly less contentious than some of the others she'd experienced recently – there had not yet been a attempted fist fight, a la Bail and Ruwee, and Leia had not stormed away from the dinner table in high emotion, as she had the night her father told her the full story of her parentage.

Fairly, so far, this could be judged a success, and even despite that comfortable assessment, Leia found herself standing out on the balcony, alone, surveying the landscape. Landscape on Coruscant was a curious, rare thing – all of it crafted by sentient beings, these days, and tainted with at least a small amount of obvious forgery, but it was still something to behold, and something Leia fiercely cherished in their new place.

The expansive balcony allowed her to look out over the courtyard, and up at the stars – though by stars, she mean the flashing halogen lights of traffic high above, for here, the regulations demanded that ships adhere to a high elevation, so as to alleviate noise and light pollution, casting the privileged community in less hustle, bustle, and toxic pollution than elsewhere.

 _Near perfect,_  she thought – not Naboo, or Corellia; certainly not Alderaan – but  _home_ , and near perfect, for their purposes.

She leaned forward on the bannister, resting her elbow on the stone, her chin on her palm, and gazed out over the courtyard idly, reflecting on the state of things. Mara was guarded, but cordial, quick-witted and demonstrably intelligent. She had a dangerous poise that was likely learned from years expecting someone or something to stab her in the back – Leia related to that poise, and seeing Mara across the table, wondered if that was the rough edginess her father had seen in her, when he first met her again. Her angular, harsh face was soft when Luke spoke to her, or near her, and her eyes seem to catch everything, even when she wasn't looking – Leia easily recognized Force sensitivity in the other woman, if for no other reason than Mara seemed half a second aware of things before anyone else, exactly as Luke did.

Leia had yet to hone her own skills that well when it came to her surroundings, but something about Mara – something, somehow, inspired her to learn. Perhaps it was knowing Mara had followed the Force to the Dark Side, and back, and in the process had found healing, and found Luke – that was almost enough to change Leia's mind about her own reservations regarding wanting to passionately feel her own emotions, and fearing how the Force would react to them.

One particular thing Leia liked about Mara immediately was how immensely uncomfortable she seemed in such a pseudo-normal, unremarkable, dinner party situation – she had court manners, instilled by the Emperor, no doubt, yet she was stiff, and on edge, as if she felt she were about to be castigated at any moment – she bristled for brief moments when she heard her name, or when she and Leia spoke – and they only spoke casually, in safe, short sentences, while Han and Luke steered the evening. She expected, it seemed, to be subjected to an inquisition.

Leia supposed she didn't blame her – after all, she had led literal inquisitions into Imperial crimes for nearly a year after the fall of Palpatine.

Shifting her head, Leia listened to the muffled sounds of activity inside – Zozy was out now, entertaining in his own way, and the socializing had moved to the living room. Han was so loud – an ingrained trait of his, Leia thought – that it somehow sounded as if there were more than three people in there, and she wondered if they were missing her, antsy about her. She hadn't snuck away; they had all seen her open the windows for some of the balmy night air – and wander out to bask in it by herself.

She closed her eyes, thinking Mara was both different than, and exactly how, she had imagined.

Though it had been easy to paint her as villain, an Imperial hag wantonly doing the Emperor's bidding, and somehow ensnaring Luke's good heart in her web, when she was an intangible phantom, it was difficult to see that monstrous picture now. Before anything, Leia saw a woman, and that sparked a sense of kinship that was primal to the bone, and when she let herself be present in the Force for a moment, that surreal entity whispered the same sort of things Luke and Winter had said –  _there, but for the grace of God, Leia._

Choice and fate were deeply intertwined, deeply complex philosophical topics, and woven in their web was circumstance, privilege, oppression, agency, bravery, and fear – a frightening amalgamation of things that damned some, and saved others.

Pride in her own resilience and resistance regarding certain things, and certain temptations, was justifiable, and earned; but tolerance for the vastly different paths of others, and their choices in different moments, with different resources, was a vital virtue.

She figured the next step was trying to navigate moving past a formal, superficial sort of relationship that kept to police niceties and clipped answers, into something deeper – that would need to happen, if Luke's seriousness about her persisted, and Leia sensed it would. That was a difficult thing to broach – intimate interpersonal relationships between women were usually earned in split-second moments of reliability that burgeoned into fierce attachment, and Leia wondered if anything like that could happen with Mara when there existed a reluctance to discuss her past.

There would just have to be – those terrible moments –

There was a soft, quiet noise behind her – clearly deliberate, though almost not loud enough to hear. Leia turned her head immediately, her attention caught, and saw Mara standing there in the doorway – she had tapped her foot subtly against the concrete of the balcony, and slid the glass door just a bit, so it rasped against its tracks.

Leia arched her brows, taken aback – it was such a pointed method of approach, but the most striking thing about it was –

"I would wager," Mara said in a steady, low voice, "that you dislike being snuck up on."

Mara turned her head to look over her shoulder, as if ensuring she wasn't being followed, and then turned back to Leia, remaining in the open doorway unobtrusively.

"You'd win," Leia allowed, and straightened up a little, rubbing her elbow as it tingled numbly, asleep from bearing her weight for the past few minutes. She pursed her lips – whether Luke had warned Mara, or Mara picked up on that herself, was immaterial at the moment; Leia was more fascinated by the exquisite way Mara had managed to neatly announce her presence without creating a startling noise that was a cringe-worthy attempt to warn Leia, but was really just an abrupt scare all in itself.

Mara nodded, without asking for elaboration, and without appearing pleased with herself. She took one step forward, and then clasped her hands in front of her, the same way Luke often did when he spoke with dignitaries. It seemed outwardly peaceful, but Leia knew it was also a strategic placement; the lightsaber was in easy reach, with that pose.

"I don't mean to interrupt you if you are meditating or taking a break," Mara said flatly, "but I did want to speak to you alone."

Leia tilted her head to the side a bit, her lips turning up. She almost blew out a breath of relief and threw her hands up to express her agreement – it was damn time they found a moment to do this, if only to break the ice incrementally more, and get Han and Luke to relax. Instead of that, though, Leia only answered mildly:

"I'm not opposed to speaking alone."

Mara nodded again, curt and accepting.

"I'd have rather gotten straight to it," she said honestly, moving forward onto the balcony.

Her arms came up, and she crossed them tightly in front of herself, a protective, but confident posture – Mara's manner of doing it made her look broad, and strong; Leia thought with amusement when  _she_  tucked her arms in like that, she looked tiny, and unimpressive.

"Yes, well," Leia murmured, and shot a glance over her shoulder through the open balcony doors, one eyebrow rising. "Our men seem to be actively preventing that."

Mara smirked dryly.

"Mine is protecting you," Leia snorted.

"Funny," Mara replied smoothly, "mine's protecting  _you_."

Leia nodded slowly, moving her head back so that she looked over the courtyard again, her back to the open door. She ran her palm lightly over the stone, standing there with Mara, their profiles thoughtful, and illuminated in moonlight – and as Mara had sought her out, she waited for Mara to speak.

"He's very protective," the redhead said finally, "of you." She turned her head, and Leia felt her staring intently. "Luke. He holds you in high esteem. I don't know you personally, but from what I know of your political philosophies, and your actions, you deserve it."

Leia felt a surge of amusement at that – such a logically offered compliment, so – blunt.

"You're a saint of a woman and you've been able to maintain that, and he's a saint of a man. I've got a filthy and untenable history. I love Luke, and I thought your opinion of me would make or break us. It's why the idea of you made me bitter," Mara said curtly. "It's why I was as wary of meeting you as you were of meeting me."

At that, Leia did turn and look at Mara, the expression on her face frozen between incredulous, and uncertain. She had not expected –

Mara smiled wryly at the look.

"You thought I would be less forthcoming?" she guessed smoothly. "Yes; so did Luke," she said, with a mild shrug. "He saw my damage, and he assessed it using the only comparison he had: you."

"Me," Leia repeated softly.

"You were steel for a long time, weren't you?" Mara asked bluntly. "Armored, and anesthetized."

Leia compressed her lips with her brows raised – that, she sensed, Mara was not getting from Luke; rather, she had the distinct impression that Mara had gleaned that analysis from watching Leia in public, hearing stories – making her own study.

And for what it was worth, Leia was now forced to hold Mara's gaze, and acknowledge that she might be the first person who had seen all of Leia's cold outward demeanor for what it was: a debilitating lack of ability to process the horrors in her life.

"He figured being with me would require the same sort of handling as he'd seen in interpersonal relationships with you."

"Well," Leia said slowly. "Women are different."

"As I told him," Mara agreed. "I don't remember a time when I wasn't enslaved; when I wasn't someone else's. Until the Empire fell, and I met Luke. I was raised on suppression of feeling, and the determination to ignore my emotions and instincts, because they would get me killed. I was raised about bloodshed and gore and violence, became inured to horrors. You were raised around healthy expression of those feelings and instincts, and protected from the worst of the world, until Alderaan was destroyed," Mara lifted her hand, and snapped her fingers, "and it cost you everything."

She tilted her head at Leia.

"Feelings and instincts. So, here we are – myself, blunt and mean, with mine; you, still, I would argue, re-embracing yours."

Leia looked at her mildly for a long time. She flattened her palms on the stone bannister, and tilted her head, looking up, away from Mara.

"I'm not a saint," she murmured – she'd said as much to Luke, too, once.

"No one is," Mara allowed, after a moment. "You don't have the sins I do, and you shouldn't pretend to," she added, a bit sharper.

Mara fell silent, and shifted. She leaned forward, placing her own palms on the stone, and Leia heard her take a deep breath.

"I know what you spent your entire youth fighting against," Mara said shortly. "The Empire. A system I ruthlessly supported. And while I – am uncomfortable, and unwilling, to go to certain lengths to secure your blessing, there are things I have – fought, to be able to say, so that for Luke – "

"Stop."

Leia cut her off quietly, and without malice. She looked down at her hands, and then turned to Mara, shaking her head.

"You have no obligation to do this."

Mara stared at her, lips parted.

" _This_ ," Leia elaborated. "This confession, this penance. Whatever it is, whatever you want to force yourself through for my benefit. You  _don't_  have to," Leia said firmly.

She took a deep breath.

"Mara," she said evenly, "when Luke told me about you, I heard the worst – assassin, Imperial, Sith. I was blind and sick with prejudice before I let him get another word out. The atmosphere around me was different. I don't begrudge myself my reactions; what I do begrudge myself is the time it took me to alter my perspective, and hear what my brother was saying to me, hear what he was talking about when it came to redemption, to living, breathing struggles with the choice to do and be good, in the here and now."

She pursed her lips, licked them, and then continued –

"I always disdained the way I was supposed to forgive Vader based on one kind act, and Luke's bright-eyed word, but you – are  _not_  Vader, and you're  _not_  the Empire; you are a woman separate, with your own history, and your own unpleasant path riddled with dark things that shaped the ways you took. I don't say that to absolve you of blame where you deserve blame, or to mitigate the choices you made, but I understand that you were not always given the resources I was to do – what I did."

Leia swallowed hard.

"And having faced death, I know that I  _want_  to live, and I don't know what I would have done in some situations if the choice was die, or engage the gray areas of the Force, or bide my time," she trailed off, her eyes still steady on Mara's.

"Luke didn't force me into meeting you. I asked – and anticipating this, I chose to see things a certain way," she said boldly. "I have enough hatred for the Empire. I have…enough hatred for my own paternity to last a lifetime. There are beasts in this galaxy for me to hate, and to hunt, and I've handed justice to many of them, and I still work alongside some of them. I cannot, in good faith, allow myself to treat co-workers who, though vile, stabilize the political sphere, better than I treat a woman my brother loves. When Luke made it clear how important to him you were, I had to decide how to take that. I've made a choice, and in the end, it was simple – once I got over myself, and listened to wiser words."

She thought of the things Winter had said – especially her comparison of Mara to Crix Madine, given Madine's heinous involvement in an Imperial massacre – Crix was a lauded hero of the Rebellion, and it was chilling that only a mass murder had been able to make him see the errors of the side he was on, but  _he had seen them_ , and he had prevailed against them in the end.

The galaxy was just – too complex for complete moral purity, for anyone to be in possession of a completely sanitized slate.

"I don't need another person to blame or another reason to detest what I fought against. I have enough," Leia said emphatically.

She did not give that much time to sink in; before Mara could gather her thoughts –though she appeared to be as caught off guard as Leia had been, at first – she continued.

"What I do need is for Luke to be happy. For Luke to have what I have with Han. I don't know what your sins are, and I don't need to know. I don't have to forgive you, or absolve you. What I have to do is keep moving forward."

She hesitated.

"Luke's respect and faith should be enough, it always should have been. He blindly trusted me more times than I can count. He was right when he told me I should meet my biological family to confront my bloodline. I'm sure he's right about you. In the past I have – been too cynical and dismissive of Luke's kindness, of his savior complex. He forgave Vader, after a deeply personal confrontation that involved familial bonds, but he has never forgiven the Emperor."

Leia nodded firmly, as if to emphasize her next words.

"Luke has a line," she said. "I trust it."

Leia's next words jumped to her lips ferociously, and she was scared of them, but she said them anyway – said them bravely, because she needed to acknowledge them, especially now; needed to voice the precarious, lingering fear that surrounded her when it came to the exquisitely complex question of nature, versus nurture.

"Besides," she remarked quietly "would I have been any different than you, if I had been raised by Vader?"

She thought of Luke once admonishing her about her privilege, how reactively offended she had been, and how she'd reflected on it later, in meditations, in introspections.

"I like to think I would," she said earnestly. "It's easy to say you'd always have become the person you are. But I don't know," she admitted stiffly.

She thought that would linger, that admission, as a vocal manifestation of the one thing that would always remain, and haunt her - even when she coped with and got beyond everything else. It was heavy on her shoulders now, as she thought briefly of her and Han's future as parents – would they be enough, to keep darkness, to keep a curse, away from their child?

There was such a thin, thin line between blaming circumstance, ignoring choice, and coldly abandoning someone who could be saved for eternally lost.

"And maybe," Leia said curtly, "I just find it easier to decide to have no problem with you because you, specifically, have never done anything to me. Maybe that is morally corrupt - but I'm human. I suffer from biases as anyone else does," she said honestly.

Next to her, Mara was quiet, absorbed in a silence that permeated the air around them, a silence that – after her lengthy diatribe – Leia found herself frustrated with, because she could not read it – and Leia was used to reading others like the open novels they so often were.

"Luke was right," Mara said finally, her voice tinged with mild resignation.

The comment was cryptic, and Leia's jaw tensed, as she tilted her head slightly.

"How so?" she asked.

"I  _do_  like you."

Mara's answer came with a pursed mouth, and a rueful smile – and after a split second of silence, Leia laughed, loud, incredulous, and pleasantly resentful.

"Ah," she breathed. "I hate when they're right," she tilted her head in the direction of the men.

For the first time during the evening, a wry, genuine smile touched Mara's lips, and Leia defined it as a smile that was scared of its own power – so accustomed to being hidden away that it appeared mean, and cool; so unused that it was aching to be coaxed out again and again.

Mara cleared her throat.

"Thank you," she said.

Leia arched her brows.

"For refusing to meet me until you were ready," Mara said.

Leia nodded.

"Better, in the end," she said dryly. "I can be quite the bitch."

"Never did like that term," Mara said breezily.

Leia smiled a little. She bit her lip, and straightened, leaning her hip against the stone railing.

"May I ask you one thing?" she ventured.

"I reserve the right not to answer, but go ahead," Mara said.

Leia compressed her lips.

"What was the moment?" she asked. "The moment that turned you away from the Dark Side."

Mara looked mildly surprised.

"I never knew it as the Dark Side," she said, after a moment – and Leia thought that answer was probably profound in itself – she had never known it as the Dark Side, because she had never really known any alternative at all.

Mara continued to think.

"The day my loyalty to Sidious began to fracture," she said slowly, "was the day he bid me to murder Vader the moment Luke had turned."

Leia drew back, startled, and Mara gave her a wry smile.

"There are only ever two Sith, you see, and in that moment, I realized I was dispensable – that I was enslaved, by these people, not loved, not nurtured – as a little girl thinks she is, when she's raised by someone – I realized I was a terminal acolyte, and if the Emperor could brutally dispense with his right hand man in an instant, after decades – I was less than nothing to him. Less," she emphasized.

She compressed her lips.

"That may not be the answer you wanted, but it ultimately led to a very deep understanding of all the things  _I_ had made dispensable, in  _my_  disconnect from the real nature of the Force."

She nodded.

"And so I began to reject that."

Leia, processing the sordid, yet fascinating way Mara had begun to turn her back on the hand that fed her, shook her head a little, dazed.

"That - was prior to the Empire's fall," she said finally. "Your loyalty was fractured – in your own right," she said, "not because – you lost."

Mara shrugged. She did not nod, or argue, she just let Leia understand that, and Leia felt – better, it was somehow exactly what she wanted to hear; Mara was not just on the path for good because she had  _lost_.

She stepped forward and tentatively touched Mara's hand.

"I know what the Dark Side feels like," she said quietly, thinking of the mad rush of it through her veins as it gave her the strength to tighten the chain around Jabba's neck.

Mara made a grim, scoffing noise.

"Like an orgasm," she said flippantly, "but not a good one. Like one you somehow manage to accidentally give yourself when you're a preteen, and you  _want_  to do it again, but it's not really that satisfying, because you don't know know what the fuck you're really doing, or how to control it."

Leia laughed, drawing her hand back. She tilted her head, and nodded a little. Mara smirked.

"While I'm on your good side," she drawled. "A frivolous question – Luke doesn't seem to be able to help me. What colour should I wear to this party of his," she said, jerking her thumb vaguely in Han's direction.

Leia was amused for a moment, and then sobered, when she realized Mara was patiently serious.

"Green, easily," she said, without a second though. "I can recommend some shops. Or, if you'd rather, my friend Winter is about your height, and she could lend a gown. She went overboard with colours once she was married."

Mara looked thoughtful, and hesitant, but nodded, accepting the advice. She reached up to brush her hair back, and tilted her head slightly, as if she'd sensed something. Shortly after, Zozy trotted out to the balcony and inched towards Leia's feet, shooting a scared look at the openings in the stone.

Luke followed, poking his head out hesitantly.

"What are you two doing?" he asked warily.

"Having sex," Mara retorted, deadpan. She thrust her hand out at Leia, who stood opposite her in a conversational pose. "What the fuck does it look like we're doing, Lu? We're talking."

Luke blinked at her, and gave her a withering glare. He glanced at Leia to check her appearance, and then scowled dryly.

"No hair pulling?" he asked sarcastically.

Mara clicked her tongue at him.

"Go back inside."

Luke withdrew a little, but not before giving Leia a peek around the door, his brows going up gleefully. Through their connection, she gave him a silent assurance that all was well, and he retreated. Leia was quiet, listening to him inform Han –

-  _Just talking?_  – Han asked.

 _Well, Mara said they're having sex_  – Luke snorted.

Han blew it off with a cavalier –  _they can't be, Leia'd be way louder._

She blushed, and smiled a little to herself. She bent to rub Zozy's ears, and then picked him up, settling him cozily in the crook of her arm.

"He's an interesting creature," Mara remarked. "I like how much Han pretends to hate him."

"Hmm," Leia murmured. She laughed. "Han gave him to me after my miscarriage," she said quietly, looking up. "You knew about that, I'm sure," she said.

Mara nodded, hesitated, and then lowered her voice.

"Yes," she said, "and I know well-wishes are in order for you now."

Leia compressed her lips, nodding again – so Mara could sense it, as well. She was even less surprised – Mara was a woman, and considering her lifelong immersion in the Force, she likely would have known it before Leia the first time.

"Han doesn't know," Leia warned again. "Please keep it that way."

Mara simply nodded, needing no elaboration. Zozy twisted in Leia's arms, and plucked one of his tail feathers, holding it cutely in his mouth. He arched his head and wagged his tail, pawing out towards Mara. Leia shifted him.

"The feather is for you," she translated. "He does that."

Mara looked bewildered, and a bit skeptical, but she stepped forward, and took the feather gently from Zozy's mouth. He chirped at her, satisfied. She looked at the thing curiously for a while, and then looked up, a determined expression on her face. Her brow furrowed, and she tilted her head at Leia.

"Would you mind if I married him?" Mara asked abruptly.

Leia blinked.

"…Zozy?" she asked, uncomprehending.

Mara's lips twitched up, amused.

"Luke," she said.

Leia's eyes widened – she forgot to laugh at herself for thinking Mara meant Zozy. She stared speechlessly, for a long moment, and then compressed her lips, cocking her head to the side.

"I can't ask his father," Mara said irreverently. "You're a blood relative."

Leia still looked consternated.

"Has it come to that?" she asked.

"It will," Mara said simply. "I'd prefer to have your – sanction, so to speak, when the time comes."

Leia pursed her lips.

"Has he asked you?" she ventured faintly.

"No," Mara said blithely. "I intend to ask him, at as yet to be determined time," she added, matter-of-factly. "I don't know if you know this about your brother, but he's very hesitant to take any sort of charge around women. I'd like to get married, and I'd like it to not be ten years from now while he decides if he's being too pushy."

Leia stroked Zozy's ears silently, fascinated, overwhelmed – and amused. She nodded as Mara spoke, but had to repeat to herself all the words, until it was silent, and Mara was watching her intently – and she had to speak, so she blurted –

"Yes."

"Yes, you mind?"

"No. Yes. Yes, I – " Leia paused, composed her words, and arched a brow at herself. "I won't mind."

Mara smiled, inclining her head.

"I asked if you minded. For your blessing," she said pointedly, "not for your permission."

"I understand," Leia said – she had requested the same from her father; not his permission, but his acceptance, his happiness, so that her union would be blessed. She let the moment linger, and then quipped – "Though when the time comes, I will be telling him you sought me out to negotiate his bride price."

Mara smirked.

"What will you tell him it was?"

Leia nodded at the feather in Mara's hand.

"One single Mooka feather."

Mara snorted. She turned the feather back and forth in her hands, and then turned her head, looking into the apartment. She tilted her head pointedly, as if to ask – _shall we?_  – And Leia nodded, though she noticed Mara respectfully did not wait for her so that they could walk in together, leaving Leia with a moment of solitude on the balcony.

She bent to press a kiss between Zozy's ears, admiring the view again, tuning into the Force, to the ethereal world around her. There was warmth there, and pleasant anticipation, and she turned on her heel to go back into the apartment, faced with Han in the doorway, come to check on her –

\- and she gave him a brilliant smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: it's so weird that this 'verse is coming to an end. i don't know what to say. well - except for this tidbit, perhaps: in the EU/Legends canon, Han and Leia have the twins in 7 ABY and Anakin in 9 ABY. in this 'verse, their first baby is (will be) born in 9 ABY - i sort of set it up like that as an homage.

2/2

_8 ABY_

* * *

Within the formidable stone halls of the New Republic's Military Headquarters, there was a somewhat comical lack of military activity – soldiering, intelligence gathering,  _warring_ – such pursuits were sprawled out beyond the borders of Coruscant. As with most places established as the central operating base of an entity, Headquarters was filled with politics, bureaucracy and, given the relative stability of the Galaxy compared to five – hell, even  _two_  years ago - boredom.

Boredom in conjunction with the military was a natural blessing; it indicated an absence of critical threat, an absence of imminent peril, and it was, by all standards of sanity, truly a thing to be welcomed, maintained, and cherished. The tedium that had befallen those assigned permanently or near-permanently to the highest-ranking Coruscant base was invigorating, in its own way, imbued as it was with the still-fresh sense of triumph. It was also the reason behind the recent defection – to use contextual jargon – of those war time rebels who had thrived on the conflict and purpose igniting them during the insurrection.

Those men and women who, like Han Solo, had found some sort of personal purpose or refuge in the Rebellion, some calling or saving grace that dragged them from the path they were on for a complexity of reasons which, at the core, were not purely ideological, and were not enough to keep them in uniform once the battle was won, and the rigmarole of peacetime armament had set in – proud to have served, and eager to relish the freedoms they had helped win, they decommissioned and searched for other sources of adrenaline highs, of excitement –

Han was not ending his military career due to a mere ache for the knuckle-whitening, heart-stopping, life-or-death thrill of his younger days; he  _did_  want to escape the suffocating encroachment of bureaucracy and pandering that had started to become part of his purview, as his rank required, but he did not seek to throw off the yoke of uniforms and stiff-upper-lip meetings with the likes of Jan Dodonna for the sake of returning to smuggling, spice-running, and debauchery.

He sought something on the spectrum in between the nomadic abandon and the tamed composure he'd lived in the past decade of his life. He was settled with Leia, content – no, content was too mild a word;  _happy_ , aggressively happy. Settled with Leia, settled on the idea of their future, of being at her side while she accomplished her goals, and left him to his own devices, whatever they may be.

His retirement was a definitive moment, but not so much a choreographed step; he had no planned move to follow it up with, no card up his sleeve to play next – and uncertainty was a thing that had never plagued him; he had cut his teeth on never knowing where his next meal, or job, or purpose would come from. The difference now – was serene, and precious; he was choosing uncertainty, rather than being forced into it by dire circumstances, and his uncertainty – his  _future_  – was soft, and welcoming. Undetermined as it may be as of now, he had the luxury of choosing what he wanted to do, without bounty hunters or slavers snarling at his heels; he was freer than he had ever been in his life, and it was almost a daunting feeling.

Which was why, whenever he was asked the question, whether it be from Luke, from Chewbacca, from his own wife, he never quite had an answer for –

"What the  _hell_  are you going to do now, Solo?"

From across the office, Carlist Rieekan was giving Han a mildly disgruntled scowl, feigning more consternation than he actually felt. Han, seated at his desk – which was empty, and bore no indication that anyone worked there for more than perhaps two or three hours a week – with his boots up on the table where a working data console should be, shrugged.

He was knee-deep in pensive, somewhat uncharacteristic self-reflection, pondering his military career – a career he'd wanted, had taken from him at the hands of the Imperials, and had given back, by the other side – the better side – when he fought for Leia's cause.

Rieekan had barged in with a gloomy expression to invade his reverie, and brood, and gripe, as bitter over Han's last day as Han was ambivalent.

"That's where all my charm comes from," Han drawled, tugging at the unbuttoned neck of his shirt. "No one ever knows what'm gonna do next."

Ambivalent wasn't the right word –  _damn_ , where was Leia and her mouthy talents when he needed her? – he was proud of his service, proud of his part, he cared about what he'd accomplished in the Rebellion, but he wouldn't miss the rigidity, the paperwork, and his patriotism was more of the personal sort, loyalty to people, not to governments.

"That's what you think charm is?" Rieekan snorted.

Han shrugged again.

"Hey, if I don't know what I'm doin', my enemies don't know what I'm doin'."

Carlist tilted his head to the side and snorted.

"Damn fine philosophy if I ever heard one. You still got a lot of enemies lurking out there? These days?" he asked skeptically. "Thought you'd made nice with the lot of them."

Han laughed loudly. He rested a hand firmly on his knee.

"I was always a  _nice_  guy," he said smugly, "just wasn't always," he started ticking down fingers, "smart, fair, diplomatic, uhh," he tilted his head, "understanding."

He lowered his hand, frowning a little.

"Some enemies you jus' never shake," he said, his eyes narrowing. "You'n'I both know that. Leia knows that. Some people hate me jus' 'cause I'm associated with her. Some hate me 'cause I'm  _with_  her."

Rieekan sighed, and shook his head, rolling his eyes upwards.

"Still, that attitude," he mumbled, well aware that it persisted in many of the more elite circles, despite Leia's blithe disregard of it, and firm refusal to tolerate any disrespect leveled at Han.

Han grinned.

"Her attitude's all that matters to me."

"That's all that should," Rieekan agreed. He looked at Han thoughtfully. "Does  _she_  have any preference for what you should do when you've hung up your General's ribbons for good?"

"She says she doesn't," Han said. "I figure she'd probably prefer it not be illegal," he snorted.

"Is she a wife to say one thing and imply another, or say what she means?"

"Better watch your mouth there, Carlist, that's gettin' pretty nosy about your sovereign," Han retorted, feigning belligerence.

Rieekan gave him a withering look, and Han shook his head.

"Nah, she tells it like she means it," he said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck thoughtfully. "There's a lot of money in Spice cartels – and bounty hunting," he began, deadpan, "say, you think it'd muck up her political career if I started some syndicate like – Black Sun, or – "

Rieekan gave a loud, derisive snort.

"Is your strategy to shock Mon Mothma into a heart attack so Leia can step into her position as Chief of State?" he asked.

Han waved his hand.

"Mon's beyond being shocked my anything I do," he said.

Rieekan arched a brow, but inclined his head, conceding that was probably true.

"You can't convince me your criminal exploits were rooted in earning fame and fortune, Han," he said dismissively. "You were a criminal by necessity, I figured that out in about half a second of knowing you."

Han gave him a menacing look.

"You got any idea what talk like that is going to do for my reputation?"

"What reputation?" goaded Rieekan with a smirk. "You're soft."

Han grumbled; shrugged – he had a hard time arguing that.

"You couldn't live that life now if you tried," Rieekan challenged.

Han drew one of his legs up, bracing the bottom of his boot against the edge of his desk. He drummed his fingers on his knee.

"Most of it was necessity," he quoted, "and tryin' to save my skin and stay alive, yeah, but there's some places where the law's so corrupt it's better to work outside it. Less places now, since the Empire's gone, but Leia can't fix everything."

Han shrugged again, his brow dark.

"I got more respect for the law now that I live in it, now that people like you'n'Leia and Luke are in charge of it, and havin' heard her talk about the roots of it, how it's s'pose to be – doesn't always change the fact that sometimes, personal codes of honor know what's right better'n rigid laws ever will."

"Spoken like a true Corellian."

Han laughed, and gestured at his trousers.

"They don't give these for nothin'," he said, gesturing at the bloodstripes – he rarely outright referenced them, but he took immense pride in them, and so much of who he was as a person was defined by that very Corellian code of honors that had earned him the red and gold standards, and guided him still to this day.

Rieekan smirked slyly.

"You ought to run for Minister of Coronet City."

"Now you're namin' ways to give Mon a heart attack," Han fired back.

Rieekan threw his legs up on the unused conference table in the middle of Han's office, placing his palms behind his head and leaning back.

"Damn shame," he lamented again.

"You ain't gettin' me to stay, Carlist."

"Not for lack of trying," Rieekan muttered, rolling his head to the side and narrowing his eyes. "Crix's the only other General who doesn't give me a blasted headache, and they're stationing him in the Mid Rim next month – and Skywalker's runnin' out on us too," he sucked his teeth, frowning. "Headquarters is gonna be dull without the two of you around," he grumbled.

Rieekan mourned the loss of a reliable general, a hell of a fighter, and a personal comrade with whom he agreed strategically on most things; Han found his own retirement non-traumatic – he had no confidence in what he was doing next, just confidence that this was what he wanted.

"Hell, I'll still be around," Han snorted. "You want me to torture the recruits with war games, I'm your guy," he offered. "You just got to pay me now."

"Han, you  _had_  a General's salary. You  _have_  a pension for honorable service."

"Yeah, but if I'm a contractor you gotta pay me more. Private sector," Han said smugly.

"What  _for_? Leia's richer than  _any_  god."

Han gave him an incredulous look.

"She didn't give me a  _trust fund_ ," he retorted. "'Sides, you think I buy her gifts and stuff with  _her_  money?" Han swore. "What kind of man do you think I am?"

Rieekan started to laugh.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that you're not lavishing Leia with gifts out of her own exchequer, that's for damn sure."

"I'm gonna buy her some diamonds with your tax money next year," Han threatened.

"Alderaan's aristocracy did not take taxes from the people," Rieekan retorted. "Their fortunes were made and amassed privately over thousands of years. Taxes went strictly to public social programs."

Han cocked an eyebrow.

"Anyone ever audit that?"

"C'mon, Han, if any planet did it clean, fair, and square, it was Alderaan."

Han frowned, then nodded, running his knuckles under his chin.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I keep learnin' more and more about it," he said, "'Cause Leia talks more, now that she's got some of her people back, and Winter'n Rouge keep me smart about it, especially since, y'know," Han muttered, shrugging, "we've got to…teach kids about it, eventually."

He paused, and then fell silent, nodding to himself.

"That's a lot," he added after a moment, brows going up. "Tellin' little kids about a planet that," he snapped his fingers, "that's just gone? How'd you even start?"

Rieekan smiled sadly.

"There's a whole generation grappling with that," he said softly. "Rouge is laying the foundation for a whole social network of how to keep things alive, with her education initiative, her museum works," he listed. "You'll have plenty of people to help."

Rieekan was thoughtful for a moment, his eyes cast low, and then he sighed.

"I think the most difficult part will be the loss of the inherent…atmosphere that existed there," he explained. "The galaxy is big, cruel, and unforgiving, but on Alderaan, there was just this fundamental sense of community and a desire for peaceful co-existence – it stood apart. It's hard to imbue that when you're living scattered around planets where it doesn't exist."

He sighed again.

"Perhaps some semblance of it can be captured at the Haven," he said, almost to himself.

"Or with Leia in charge of the galaxy," Han said flippantly.

"Hmm," Rieekan grunted. He crossed his arms, blinked, and looked up. "How is Princess Leia?" he asked. "I haven't spoken to her outside of professional matters in," he shrugged, "a while."

"You used to be wary of inquiring after the personal," Han snorted, amused.

"Shouldn't have asked me to officiate your wedding," retorted Rieekan. "She met Luke's girl, yeah? How'd she like Mara?"

Han cocked a brow.

" _You've_  met Mara?"

"Briefly," Rieekan said, nodding. "A couple times. I've been picking Luke's brain on kyber crystals as an energy source. She's always at his apartment."

"What do you think of her?" Han demanded, turning the question back on him.

"Oh, she's always very cordial, but at the same time if you told me she hunts for food and then eats her prey alive I wouldn't flinch," he said bluntly. "And, she calls me 'Carl.'"

Han laughed loudly.

"I think she pulls that stuff as a power play," he snorted. "Gettin' names wrong, just gettin' stuff wrong. 'Cause then she looks at you like she knows  _you_  know  _she_  knows it's wrong."

"First impression I had was that she wasn't Luke's type," Rieekan said, "but then I figured somehow she's perfect for 'im."

Han nodded, taking his leg off the desk and leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. He peered over at Rieekan, squinting a little.

"Leia likes her," he said. "So far, no drama, no bad blood. Mara's got a tough past," he said gruffly, frowning, "had a bunch of connections that don't sit well with Leia, or get you know," he gestured stiffly to his temple, "get in her head wrong." Han paused, hesitating. "Leia's not as…tender, anymore, when it comes to the past," he said slowly. "It's not that it doesn't hurt. S'just…not a constant pain."

He straightened up a little.

"'Cept Alderaan," he said grimly. "I don't think that goes away."

He could only imagine – and his imaginings wouldn't come close to the true devastation – that over time, the massive loss, the hole left by Alderaan's destruction, became an integral, persistent injury to be lived with, rather than recovered from – an amputation of the soul.

"You would be right," Rieekan said simply. He was silent, and then gave a nod. "I'm glad to hear it, Han," he said gruffly. "I worried about her. I always – well, you know I did," he muttered, and Han thought back to the private talk Rieekan had given him, just after Bail Organa's device reappeared in the stars.

_I want to know that you are up for it…for her…and everything that will come with her._

Han gave him a half smile.

"'M still up for it, Carlist."

Carlist snorted.

"You hardly need to reassure me.  _That_  I know beyond the shadow of a doubt," he paused delicately. "I was sorry to hear about your loss," he offered quietly. "I never said anything to her. I know it wasn't common knowledge, and she was keeping things together in public. Wasn't fair. Neither of you deserved it." He frowned. "Never said anything to you, either," he added, and then tilted his head: "Been there," he said bluntly. "In between my second and last son."

Han leaned back in his chair.

"She's okay," he said simply.

He and Leia both had recovered from those sad weeks, and Han twitched his shoulder tightly at the thought of them, moving on from the memories. He arched his brow, glaring at Carlist over his fist, and gave a sharp, mocking whistle.

"You're comin' in here, all wistful, all  _nostalgic_ , trying to bond, talkin' about the good old days," he drawled. "It ain't gonna work, Carlist. I'm done."

He grinned, and Rieekan scowled at him.

"I shouldn't let you or Luke retire, blasted fools," he griped. "I ought to just jettison you both, dishonorable, on the charge of leaving me with Jan."

"Those are fightin' words," Han said seriously. "Don't question my honor."

Lightening up, Rieekan put a hand to his heart, shaking his head. Han nodded, satisfied, and watched as Rieekan swung his boots off the table, and leaned forward, his hands hanging in his lap aimlessly. He wrinkled his forehead, and shook his head again, grinning at Han.

"You got to give me something," he demanded, holding his palms up. "Smuggler, General – eh?" he listed. "What next?"

Han put his hands behind his head, leaning back, his elbows striking outwards sharply. Silently, he just shrugged, his jaw set, his brows up in an indication of either mystery, or utter uncertainty – Rieekan wasn't quite sure. He wasn't thinking too far beyond next week, too far beyond the retirement gala – he was, in some ways, anchored vividly in the present, and looking forward – what next was yet to be determined – but he was, for once, facing the uncertain  _next_  with laid back confidence, and bright anticipation, rather than with the biting suspicion of his past that had always whispered to him he was about to be swindled, shot – or worse.

_That_  – he hadn't felt in years.

* * *

Despite the vast amount of responsibility she had given her – various – positions in the upper echelon of the New Republic, Leia's days were remarkably manageable; hectic, but in the exact sort of way she had been trained for, thrived on, even. A sizable portion of her burden had been lifted, of course, when that still unbelievable twist of fate had delivered Bail Organa and many of Alderaan's chief advisors back to the living present, and though on occasion, Leia felt twinges of uncertainty, or guilt, at gearing herself more towards intergalactic affairs than domestic affairs within the Diaspora, she knew the arrangement was fitting, and knew even better that her people did not begrudge her for it.

Bail was still living, and as Breha's widower and the last Viceroy of Alderaan, fairly in power, and in command over her throne rights, legally regent until Leia assumed the crown – and as she had chosen not to, and they had ultimately decided to gradually shift the Diaspora of Alderaan into an entirely democratic multitude rather than continue the monarchy, Bail would remain the permanent custodian of the Organa throne until his death, at which point the monarchy would pass into legacy.

As it were, Leia continued to function as Alderaan's princess, immersing herself in affairs related to the Diaspora through the council, though primarily her talents and efforts were exercised in her position as Ambassador-at-Large, chief diplomat of the New Republic – she directed the entire diplomatic corps, and handled the most important political negotiations.

At present, their hard-earned democracy existed in a pleasant stasis, never perfect, as no governing body that oversaw billions of beings on hundreds of world could ever achieve perfect peace, but steady, and functioning as best as it could within a multifaceted web of politics. The uproar over Leia's heritage had since faded, though it still cropped up as a point of argument where her opponents found it useful, or when gossip columnists or commentators lacked other things to discuss, but most of the public was as inured to it as Leia was, and she was able to work, she was able to be effective –

Thus, she felt no sense of stress or urgency in her daily work other than the  _invigorating_  stress and urgency that was an integral aspect of politics. She wasn't concerned about holding onto her position, she was wielding power as she should be within it, and the hustle and bustle of it was rewarding, and left her proud, inspired, and eager to do more – just as it had in the old days. She burned with a fervor to succeed, and effect change; it was passion similar to what had kept her determined and strong in her youthful days in the senate, though imbued with some of the hardness and wisdom she had learned during battle and bloodshed.

A princess, a senator, a displaced victim, a war veteran – she was a fierce mix of things that had made her weaker, and stronger, wiser, and more optimistic all at once, and it was, she reflected, a  _good_  – she would put it that simply,  _good_  – combination in a woman who still harbored a calm ambition to help create and lead a better galaxy.

She felt she had a good handle on herself, and a fair enough opinion of both her faults, and her strengths, to remain fair, and uncorrupted, and the day she questioned her ethics or her commitment to her core values was the day she would step out of the political world for good –

\- and that day, she swore, was never to come; she would rather death take her than surrender herself to the sort of rot that often came with years of power.

Leia was not omniscient, not certain of where her future career would take her – elections were hardly guarantees of success, constituents were fickle – but she knew in her soul that she would be working for this Republic as long as she could make a difference. It was the fruit of a youth she had sacrificed, a labor of love that she had seen come to bear despite brutal and demoralizing trauma, and she would see it triumph in throughout her life; she would strengthen its foundations so well that she was victorious for a thousand years after she was gone.

She had nursed that determination even when it was difficult, even in despairing days during the grueling post-War battles that decided their victory, and the uphill Reconstruction years, yet now, she nursed that determination even more fiercely, for the future of this Republic wasn't just something that she wanted to exist for the good of all beings – it was something she wanted to exist for the good of her  _own_  family, so that her children,  _her_  flesh and blood, would not have to fight the same tired fights.

It was striking, and incredible, how sharply nuanced her perspective became when she factored in a future built not just for the good of the sentient population, but for a child of her own, hers and Han's.

She had always known from a logical standpoint that beings, whether they be leaders, or private citizens, most often made choices based on what was best for their children –  _their_  safety,  _their_  happiness – and in her youth, she had sometimes thought it selfish, when she, a childless teenager, was running an insurgency for – her own rights, of course – but with a bigger picture in mind than just her own kin.

She treasured the fact that she had fought for better things, fought against oppression, without parental desperation being the impetus, but she understood there had been a certain amount of naiveté in thinking those who did selfish – there were different reasons for fighting, and she was able to have an appreciation for those reasons – even now, even so early, when really it was still only herself and Han in their home.

Still, there was burgeoning new purpose in her beliefs and ambitions, small and flickering, even more reason to care, and to work, when she wanted safety, security, and peace to prevail because in a precious handful of months that seemed to be coming at her too quickly, and very slowly all at once, she would  _need_  safety, security, and peace, need it desperately, for the helpless, new little life that would upend everything.

Upend it, she told herself, nervous, but full of hope and anticipation, in a very much wanted – though scary – and blessed way.

As each day passed by without an ominous whisper of pain or loss, she mired herself in more confidence, and found it harder and harder to keep her mouth shut around Han when she so badly wanted to see the look on his face when she told him.

A small part of her worried that she was being unfair, given that Luke and Mara knew, but she hadn't told them explicitly – she couldn't help their sensitivities any more than she could her own – and she certainly wasn't telling anyone else before Han, though two nights ago after dinner Chewbacca had given her a very pointed sniff and a suspicious glare.

It was only a few more days until the gala and then –

"Ambassador?"

Tavska's mellow voice came over the intercom, and Leia looked up from the sofa in her office where she'd been lying down. She blinked a few times and oriented herself back to the present, staring critically at her desk. Sitting forward a little, she rubbed her temple, and directed her talents at the intercom on her desk, compressing the button without rising to go over there.

"Yes?" she asked, raising her voice so she would be heard.

She swung her feet off the sofa and smoothed her hand over her hair, reaching forward to take a glass of sparkling mint juice off of her table and take a few sips. Her morning had been light, a handful of meetings, and one ceremony, and she'd been lying down undisturbed since lunch, having spent most of said morning draining her energy in her effort to suppress the persistent nausea that was plaguing her.

"Madam Chief of State is requesting a moment with you," Tavska answered. "She understands it's unscheduled, and her aide says it isn't urgent."

Leia bit down on the edge of the glass, interested – she hadn't had an unscheduled session with Mon in  _months_  – unscheduled generally being their code for personal.

She nodded to herself, taking a few more sips of the water before compressing her speaker button again –

"I am available," she said neutrally, and then – "Tavska, can you have Oiysha get me some fruit from the cafeteria? And a glass of ice?"

Tavska gave her an affirmative, and after a moment, Leia got up, carrying her glass over to her desk and setting it down. She went to the ornate glass display set up against the wall and opened one of the cabinets, checking her appearance in a mirror to ensure her hair wasn't too mussed up. She prodded under her eyes – she looked fine, if just a tad bit pale.

She wanted to swear and gripe about the nausea – which she was positive was days away from turning into full-fledged morning sickness – yet she counted it as a  _good_  sign; past research had indicated more severe morning sickness was thought to be a good thing, as it exterminated toxins – and if her body didn't think the toxins were a bad thing, it indicated something was wrong altogether.

She shut the cabinet and idly wondered what Mon Mothma wanted with her, unable to think of anything specific. They had encountered no disagreements in the political sphere of late, and their personal relationship remained cordial, and warmly respectful, even if it had been damaged slightly by Mon's delayed show of support during the Skywalker Reckoning.

Preemptively, she retrieved a glass, and a teacup, from the display case, in case Mon wanted hot or cold refreshment. She also adjusted a vase of fresh flowers Han had sent her last week, and slightly shifted a small holo she kept on one of the shelves – the one that had been taken of Han the day he went to the political houses to watch her return to the Senate.

Leia smiled softly.

She folded her arms, head cocked as she looked at the photo, and considered it until there was a quiet knock at the door, and Tavska opened it smoothly to let in both Mon, and Oiysha with the requested platter of fruit and ice.

"Mon," Leia greeted, gesturing Oiysha politely towards the table near the sofa.

"Leia, I'm sorry to intrude," Mon Mothma said just as politely, "thank you for letting me."

Leia shrugged.

"It's no imposition," she said honestly. "Thank you, Oiysha – Mon?" Leia asked, gesturing at the teacup and the glass, and holding up her hand for a moment to stop the aide from leaving.

Mon shook her head.

"I'm set, I've just come from lunch."

Leia waved her hand to dismiss her employees, lifting her chin at Tavska.

"Hold my calls, other than the usual exception," she requested – Tavska nodded, smiling a little; the usual exception was Han, who had the privilege of getting through no matter what, regardless of if it was an emergency, or he wanted to ask Leia what she was wearing because he'd missed her that morning.

Tavska and Oiysha departed, and Leia swept her glass from the desk, returning to the more open conference area. She poured the lukewarm mint water over the fresh ice, and sat down, gesturing for Mon Mothma to do so as well. The Chief of State placed her valise on the floor next to a chair, and sat down comfortably.

"How did the meeting with the Kalee delegation go?" Leia asked.

Mon sighed.

"Well, it was not the worst meeting I've ever had," she said, tilting her head, "though not entirely productive – the strides we've made with Bakura are phenomenal, and most of that's thanks to the Captison influence, but we've got  _nothing_  like Gaerial on Kalee, I'm afraid," she said dryly. "Teth has been a mess since the fall of the Empire and our best bet for ensuring Wild Space stays firmly ensconced within the Republic's control is if we can get Kalee to go the way of Bakura instead of propping up Teth's infantile Moff."

Mon Mothma sighed again, and shook her head.

"We'd likely be better off isolating Kalee and focusing on getting Teth to go the way of Bakura," Leia said, knowing that was futile. "If we could get Teth to stop electing that gundark."

"Alas," Mon said curtly, "the tagline for Democracy is 'if we could get so-and-so to stop electing that gundark.'"

Leia laughed. She leaned back, stretching her arm out on the sofa's armrest and tilting her glass back and forth so the ice clinked softly.

"How are things with the foundation on Naboo?" Mon asked, her brow furrowing. "There wasn't a vote today so I wasn't present in the Senate but – I believe arguments were scheduled for funding? Pooja was center stage?"

Leia nodded. She tapped her glass lightly. Pooja, in conjunction with many other people who had had prominent family members blacklisted by the empire, were engaged in an effort to create a re-education center based in Theed.

"There are accusations that Pooja is trying to get public funding for what's really nothing more than a personal vindication of her aunt," Leia said, rolling her eyes, "and alternately, some resistance to having such an important foundation based on a small Mid-rim planet – which I suppose I see the issue with, but commerce with Naboo is frequent, and it's fairly well-traveled. Pooja's having trouble getting some to see that a massive effort to correctly record history, despite what the Empire tried to erase, is paramount to survival of our democracy – mostly because her family name makes it seem like a private vendetta against Vader."

Leia shrugged.

"She was aware that would be an issue going in, and I can't make too much of a comment given that Padmé was my mother," she added. "Luke devotes plenty of time to advocating for it."

Mon smiled wryly.

"Perhaps a compromise on the name, to make it seem less specific?"

Leia arched her brows.

"Pooja isn't desperate enough to give that up yet," she said flatly, "besides – Padmé was certainly not the only person blacklisted by the Empire, but her fall from power was perhaps the most damning, and given the connection to Vader, the most significant, so I think it's more than fair that an intergalactic historical think tank bear her name."

_Amidala's Library_  – that was the working title of Pooja's burgeoning foundation, and Leia privately thought it a beautiful thing, though she was neutral on it publicly, and did not interfere with Pooja's or the Senate's ministrations on the matter.

"At the very least, at least that's what we're arguing about – whether Pooja's named an educational foundation something too glaringly personal," Leia snorted. "I'll gladly take that over a debate that asks whether or not I am currently possessed by the vengeful spirit of Darth Vader."

"I had heard that you were," Mon Mothma said, without missing a beat. "I felt that suggestion was mostly nonsense," she said, deadpan.

"Mostly?" Leia quoted, amused.

Mon Mothma smiled at her blithely, and Leia shook her head seriously.

"What a horrid thought," she said dismissively.

"Accusations of your corruption remain on the fringe, these days," Mon said honestly. "They're rarely uttered in my presence anymore."

"Mmmhmm. You made your loyalties clear," Leia murmured.

She tilted her head again, her face thoughtful.

"Did something bring you here, Mon?" she asked curiously, sensing a unique aura about the other woman that was a little unusual – Mon seemed laid back, less prim than usual – and a little on edge, but in a very specific, humble way.

"Yes, sentimentality, if you can believe it," Mon responded swiftly. She leaned back comfortable, relaxing back a little, and hesitated before going on. "Jan reminded me that today is Han's final day in uniform."

Leia nodded slowly.

"Not that he ever wears said uniform," she noted fairly.

Mon smiled wryly.

"We became used to that," she said, even a little fondly. "His manner of dress never did have an effect on his strategic acuity."

Leia's brows went up a little, but she made no remark. Mon's attitude towards Han had always been complex – she was never deliberately rude, but she could often be gently condescending whether it was intentional or not – and though she had never sought to outright separate Leia from him, she had voiced significant, elitist opposition, and Leia was unsure if her opinions there had ever changed. Han had been publicly derogatory of Mon in the past, and Mon had borne it with her usual stoicism and grace – and while she was a woman who always gave credit where it was due, she had never been one to compliment or praise Han freely –

Suffice it to say, Leia did find the notion of her reflecting nostalgically on Han's career – odd.

"Ah, you can't believe it," Mon said sagely, looking at Leia with amusement.

Leia gave her an innocent look.

"I – "

"No need," Mon said, waving her hand. "I know I've been lukewarm about Han in the past, unfairly so, given his admirable service."

"Actually, you've always been exactly as fair as he deserves about his service," Leia corrected – and Mon had been.

"I'm glad," Mon said earnestly, "because it has been good service.  _Invaluable_  service," she murmured. "Jan mentioned his retirement with a bit of a sneer – "

"Some things never change," Leia said flatly.

"—no doubt due to Han's emergency appointment and the war time conditions of his commission, but I found myself feeling…rather different on the subject," Mon said, going on with only a small smirk to acknowledge Leia's interruption.

She hesitated, glancing down thoughtfully for the moment.

"When no-name Captain Solo showed up with you in his care on Yavin eight years ago, it was all amidst consternating and tragic circumstances, but no one denies that without him, and Luke, we'd have lost the Battle of Yavin," she recounted, looking up, "and on Hoth, without him, we'd likely have starved, or had troops dying of preventable injury without the medical supplies he smuggled in, and on Endor, without him," Mon raised her hands, not needing to finish. "That of course puts your leave to rescue him in a different perspective, one I didn't consider at the time."

Leia crossed her legs, and took a sip of water.

"He killed Zsinj, he inspired morale – whether he knew it or not – when we needed it…he humanized you, in a way," Mon said softly, "in the eyes of others, when we were in dire need of a compassionate bridge between the leadership and the enlisted – and to think, I once advised you  _against_  being seen as human, as approachable."

"I remember," Leia said quietly.

Mon Mothma inclined her head respectfully.

"And now he's moving on," she said, her brows going up, "and despite Jan's scowling, it struck me as the end of an era. Han's not the peacetime bureaucratic general that Carlist was always meant to be, but he's highly skilled, and he commands respect. We'll miss him, I think."

"You think Jan Dodonna will miss Han?" Leia asked.

" _I_  will miss him," Mon corrected, smirking.

Leia considered her for a moment, her heart warming happily at the words. She was right, Han was so very important to the core of what they'd achieved, and for some reason that was the first thing forgotten when scandals broke – inquiring minds seemed to flock back to his criminal enterprises, his so-called  _bad_  days.

Leia caught her breath momentarily.

"Eight years," she murmured, repeating the words in awe – eight years, had it really been? Eight years since the tumultuous escape from the Death Star, from the moment she'd set foot on Yavin, on safe, protected ground, and felt the first crushing wave of desolation that came from knowing she'd never set foot on her own sovereign soil again?

And then, everything with _in_  those eight years—

For a moment, the memory of the despair she'd felt after Yavin was so strong, her eyes welled up. She sat forward, her brow furrowing, and brought her hand to her lips, closing her eyes.

"I'm – sorry, Mon," she started, startled with herself – the feeling of despair passed, but on its heels settled in the gratitude and happiness she'd been overwhelmed with lately, and that expressed itself in tears, too. "I, um – "

"No, no apology needed," Mon said earnestly. "These are intense times, intense memories," she murmured.

Leia tilted her head back, pinched her nose, and took a deep breath. She breathed out slowly, straightened her head, and nodded, mustering a smile.  _Hormones_ , she chided herself privately – but not only hormones, really.

"It  _is_  the end of an era," she agreed. "There is always some personal reckoning that comes with that."

"Certainly," Mon agreed. "How is Han feeling about his impending…freedom?" she chose her last word wryly, tongue-in-cheek.

Leia snorted lightly.

"As he feels about most things," she said. "Cocky."

"What does he intend to do next?" Mon asked.

Leia tilted her head back and forth thoughtfully, leaning forward. She placed her glass on the table and reached for some one of the fruits, picking at a stem to start peeling it.

She shrugged.

" _Nothing_  isn't the appropriate word, because I doubt Han is going to sit around watching Holos throughout the day," she said slowly, "though to my knowledge, he doesn't have anything lined up."

She tore some of the peel off and set it aside neatly.

"He's never had the luxury of figuring out what he wants to do and pursuing it," she said, "not like you or I did, with our resources and privilege. And his skills are specific and not necessarily civilian-oriented," she added, smirking. "He's not political," she mused, taking a small bite, narrowing her eyes. "I suppose I wouldn't be surprised if he took up some sort of consulting," she said. "Or," she added, cocking a brow, "working with Carlist to track down and recover Alderaanian artifacts that had been ransacked and stolen.  _That's_  perhaps closest to smuggling."

Leia turned the fruit in her hand thoughtfully.

"He'll get bored with 'nothing' and find his way," she said placidly.

She had no intention of perching on Han's shoulder and harassing him about what he was doing with his life – he was a grown man, and as far as she was concerned, he had done plenty – besides, there would be  _so much_  to do at home, soon –

"I had thought he might get into racing," Mon offered, "or the high stakes gambling that we've legalized on the tourist worlds."

Leia smiled demurely.

"I think Han preferred gambling when he had nothing to lose," she said. "That's no longer the case."

"Of course not," Mon said, nodding. "He's never seemed to have an issue adjusting to the Alderaanian deference to women as the preferred sex," she noted. "I had always thought that might be hard for a Corellian."

"Well, Corellians do value a sort of brute-strength masculinity, but it's never outweighed their honor codes," Leia said. "And Han was raised by a single woman. The men in his life while he was a child were monsters and bullies and  _she_  taught him better."

She nodded to herself.

"And I was always less than enamored of Alderaan's pedestal feminism. It had its faults –we're," she said, pausing to take another thoughtful bite, "well-matched."

"You are," Mon agreed. She cleared her throat, her jaw tightening uncomfortably. "Ridiculous at it sounds considering I'm a seasoned politician, I've been trying to figure a way to approach Han and apologize for my slights towards him in the past," she said flatly. "Leia, I never should have been as caustic or interfering as I was regarding him. And I've been wrong in every respect when it comes to your relationship with him. He's been good to you in the best and worst of times and that's really all I should have cared about, when I asked you if you were set on him."

Leia lowered her hand. She considered Mon for a long time, and then took a deep breath.

"You're right, Mon," she said, "you shouldn't have," she agreed honestly. "But, you were not the only one – and you were not the  _cruelest_  one, and when it came down to the root of it all, I did always feel you had the best intentions."

Leia shook her head a little, and touched her free hand to her chest.

"Leave it in the era gone by," she said simple.

Mon nodded, the muscles in her jaw relaxing all at once.

"And for what it's worth, though I'm sure you've been told this, having known both Breha and Padmé, I know they  _both_  would have loved him very much."

Leia smiled, her eyes stinging again, just a little.

"I have been told that," she said, "but I appreciate hearing it all the same."

She smiled again, broader this time, and focused on her fruit, sitting in pleasant silence with Mon for a little while. It was nice to have the vestiges of subtle animosity cleared from the air between them; moving forward, it seemed fitting.

"I have a housekeeping question for you, if you don't mind," Mon ventured after a moment.

"Hmm?" Leia murmured.

"The upcoming elections," Mon said. "Second quarter of 9 ABY – have you decided if you will be running for Chief of State?" she asked, and then hurriedly went on: "I ask not to try and discourage you for my own benefit," she said. "I'd rather endorse you than run against you. I only seek to know where your head is."

Leia looked surprised, and compressed her lips for a moment, her brows going up.

"You would refrain from running if I put my name in?" she asked, incredulous – it didn't strike her as a Mon Mothma thing to do; Mon's entire existence, more so than Leia's, given her apparent utter rejection of a personal life, was the New Republic.

"It would be difficult," Mon said honestly, "but this early in the Republic, I'd much rather make a sacrifice if my personal goals and ambitions than give the appearance of discord within our party ranks," she said firmly. "Endorse you, rather than challenge you," she said again. "Our leadership right now is highly trusted and doing well, and I don't want it to seem fractured."

Leia felt shaky suddenly, nervous – it was a known ambition of hers to hold the position of Chief of State at some point; Han knew that, her father knew that, and of course Mon knew it. The idea of it approaching so soon had only peripherally occurred to her, but the question, posed directly to her, and her current condition, gave her pause.

Unthinking, she almost laughed, and said –  _I can't run for office in the second quarter, I'll be on maternity leave my entire first term!_  – but she bit her tongue, her face flushing.

Instead, she shook her head, quietly confident.

"That is not on my radar yet," she said. "What we have right now is working. The leadership is solid – you're still beloved; you're still  _effective_ ," she said. "I'd rather endorse  _you_  than run against you, right now."

Leia waved her hand, a little carefree.

"And Mon, I'm twenty-seven," she said breezily. "I have time."

Mon Mothma smiled faintly.

"Yes, I suppose you do," she said. "I constantly forget how young you really are."

Leia gave her a mock glare.

"Except when you're chastising me about sleeping with scoundrels," she retorted.

Mon blushed a little, but laughed.

"You have me there," she admitted, recalling numerous instances where she had brought up Leia's relative youth in regards to why she was being foolish about settling for that  _damn_  Han Solo.

Mon Mothma straightened, lifting her eyes to check a chrono on Leia's wall, and sighing as she sat forward and reached down to gather her valise.

"Well, I'll leave you to your day," she said. "I would appreciate it if you would relay to Han my – changed feelings, on the matter," she said, a slight blush touching her cheeks."

"Tell him yourself," Leia said confidently. "You'll be at the gala."

"The honor ceremony," Mon corrected. She hesitated. "I thought my invite to the gala was a courtesy, not a reality," she said.

"It might have been," Leia allowed with a shrug, "but Mon, really, just come to it. It's more Han's crowd, but it's strictly private, there will be no press inside the venue – you ought to let  _loose_ , for one night."

Mon seemed to equivocate, but then gave a small nod, that indicated she understood, but left her decision over whether or not to attend ambiguous. Leia set aside her fruit and turned, straightening her shoulders to bid a more formal farewell to Mon.

She considered her for a moment, and then she smiled wryly.

"Mon, I feel I should warn you about my attire for the event," she said carefully – the thought had occurred to her, whether it was due to Mon's status as a sort of maternal-mentor figure, or because Leia had her own mischievous streak that liked to rustle the sensibilities of the more conservative.

Mon Mothma gave her an unreadable look.

"Should you?" she murmured.

Leia nodded.

"I have commissioned a Lennoxx," she said, pausing to let the well-known designer's name linger. "It's an uncharacteristic colour," she added, without elaborating.

"Among other things, I'm sure," Mon said slowly, her eyes wide. Lennoxx was – unless Leia was talking about a different Lennoxx, which was unlikely – a designer of upscale, elite  _lingerie_. "Are you – wearing a… _gown_?" Mon asked faintly.

"Yes, it's a gown," Leia said, amused. "I won't be waltzing around in underwear."

"Near underwear, I presume," Mon argued lightly. "Far be it from me to tell you what to wear, and your father certainly can't, but I do have some affection for the man and he will have a heart attack if you wear something – designed – "

Mon gave her a pointed look, letting the sentence hang.

Leia smiled demurely.

"He will live."

"There's going to be an avalanche of shock over a Princess of Alderaan in a Lennoxx design," Mon warned mildly – if only because to her knowledge, Leia usually liked to avoid rampant media attention about trivial things.

Leia shrugged - she was aware. In a very small way, she welcomed it, because it would deflect attention from Han – which he would appreciate – while also allowing him the subtle privilege of bragging rights over her, which he secretly enjoyed, even if he refused to admit it.

"This event is for Han. I am not going as Leia of Alderaan. I'm going as Han Solo's wife."

Mon Mothma tilted her head curiously.

"And those are different women?" she asked.

"Sometimes," Leia said simply.

Mon considered her a long time, and then nodded without comment. A small, almost proud smile touched her lips, and she shifted her valise to the crook of her arm, folding her hands neatly and standing still for a moment before she turned to take leave.

Leia turned her head to watch her go, staring after the Chief of State until she had shut the office door, and left Leia in solitude and silence, with only her mint water, and her fruit.

Leia leaned back into the sofa and let her shoulders fall, tilting her head back and staring up at the high vaulted ceiling. Mon Mothma herself feeling reflective was an indication of how far they had all come in all this time – in eight years –

She reached up to touch her forehead, brushing tendrils of hair back, and then trailed her hands down to her jaw, her collarbone, her chest, and finally her abdomen, running the pads of her fingers over her ribs, and to the space at her navel – the timing was so delicate, so ideal, letting her have a memorable moment to tell Han, and at the same time, being early enough that she did not have to have the waist of that incredible gown let out –

\- because it was something to behold, and she was almost as feverish for Han to see her in it, as she was to tell him he was going to be a father.

* * *

The gala was a thing all its own; not raucous enough to be called a party, but not quite formal enough to fully embody the term  _gala_ , either. Leia had been right in initially describing it as something akin to hers and Han's wedding reception, though their reception had included a fair handful of political invitees. By contrast, his retirement – event – was far more comparable to the victory party that had followed the Battle of Yavin, in terms of guests and lack of Media. The old guard was out in full force, making the whole evening reminiscent of the impromptu, morale-boosting celebrations that had cropped up during the Rebellion – except this one was meticulously planned, and did boast of a few new guests.

Namely, the one on Luke Skywalker's arm, though there were jokes aplenty – from the likes of the Rogue Squadron – that Leia herself counted as someone new, clad as she was in a such a dress, flaunting Han's name –

She basked in the teasing, more than receptive to it; these men were Han's closest friends, and had befriended her and saved her to lesser, but valuable extents during the war, and she was happy to celebrate that – and she was more than happy to join in their belligerently-though-friendly teasing of Luke and his fetching date.

"She's so tall, Skywalker, does she carry you over thresholds?"

"Luke, come clean, buddy, we know you hired her – "

When it came down to it, Leia chastised them like a sister and assured them Mara was the real deal, though Mara held her own amongst the Rogues as if she'd been born to run with them – he interactions with Lando, though, were perhaps the most memorable, and amusing –

"Didn't you try to kill me?" he'd asked suspiciously, taking a slight step behind his fiancée, Tendra, and glaring at Mara over her shoulder.

Tendra, nonplussed, had shaken Mara's hand.

"No," Mara responded.

Lando's jaw had fallen open, and he looked between Leia and Luke indignantly, pointing at Mara –

"Yes, she did. She tried to kill me at the battle of – "

Luke had bowed his head, as if he knew what was coming, as Mara coolly responded –

"If I had 'tried,'" she said the word with disdain, "you'd be dead."

Luke slid an arm around her waist while Lando glared, offended.

"Do, or do not," Luke advised sagely. "There is no try."

The resulting conversation between Lando and Mara – which dissolved into a rousing argument over tactics, and who had really won their hand-to-hand combat scenario – an argument Lando was spectacularly, though stubbornly, losing – had amused Leia greatly, holding her over until Han had reappeared at her side, tugging her slightly away from the group with a baffled look on his face.

She reached up to touch his jaw gently, her eyes bright.

"You ain't gonna believe what Mon Mothma just said to me," Han mumbled.

Leia leaned closer, feigning innocence.

"Did she try to talk you out of sleeping with me again?" she asked, knowing full well the gist of what Mon must have said to Han – and she was so glad Mon had decided to attend both the honor ceremony, and the gala, as it seemed to indicate such a sense of coming full circle.

"No, she," Han broke off, and snorted, as if Leia's comment had just sunk in, and then continued: "She told me I had a 'rare breed of valor,'" he quoted under his breath, "and that I was 'unique among men.'"

Leia turned her hand, running her knuckles over his neck.

"And you're – insulted?" she murmured.

"No, I'm," Han started, shrugging. He arched his brows at her suspiciously. "Not her usual thoughts about me," he pointed out dryly.

"Perhaps she's had a change of heart," Leia murmured.

Han grunted. He rested his hands on her waist and looked over her shoulder, scanning the mass of people enjoying themselves, and then looked back down at Leia, a sly grin sloping across his face. He arched an eyebrow.

"You think she's drunk, and comin' on to me?" he joked.

Leia laughed.

"That  _does_  sound like how Mon would come on to a man," she giggled, shaking her head. She flattened her palm against his chest and looked up at him, pursing her lips. "She means it, Han," she told him quietly. "She said as much to me last week. She got over herself."

Han straightened a little, his hands tightening on Leia's waist. The edges of his fingertips dug under the fabric of her dress – what fabric there was to feel – and he looked over her shoulder again, spotting Mon in the crowd, now talking to Bail. He narrowed his eyes for a moment intently, considering her – a younger, less mature version of himself might blow her off, call it too little too late, but for some reason, it meant something now, regardless of the past.

His grip loosened as he shook himself, and then tightened again when he focused on Leia, leaning back into the shadows of the towering columns that lined the venue. He drew her backwards some, catching her so that her middle pressed against his. He ran a hand over her side, fingers catching in the soft silk bows that neatly tied the front and back material of her dress together.

"I can't get over  _you_ ," he said hoarsely, his eyes tracing the contours of her breasts. They were framed perfectly in a deep v-neck, accentuated by fine, glittering black lace that curled into leaf-like designs, covering her while simultaneously giving the illusion that she was uncovered.

Leia set her shoulders back, humoring him, and brushed her hand down her side to twist her fingers delicately into the black silk at her hip, flourishing one of the slits in the gown a little so her upper thigh was visible.

"This old thing?" she said sweetly.

Han grasped at her hand, shaking the material back down.

"Tease," he growled.

Leia cut her lashes at him, biting her lower lip to hold back a smile – to say the least, her dress had been effective; the Lennoxx was an aggressive effort in silk and lace, composed of an onyx black so startling it emphasized her skin like snow. The revealing, glittering leaf design trailed from her shoulders to her hips, where the gown broke into a flowing, effortless train with slits so dangerously high her father had sardonically asked her if she'd mistakenly put on a dress the tailor had yet to finish.

The back dipped as low as the front, though in this one her infamous scar was obscured – by chance, not by design – with a similar forest of sparkling-sheer black leaves, and on either side, the material of the gown appeared to be barely held together by delicate silk bows – baring skin on all sides.

She had stepped out in it to both the ceremony, and the gala, been photographed in it at Han's side when his official photo was taken, and caused an uproar like she hadn't in quite a few months now when the slits fell to the side and exposed most of her leg up to the hip as she stepped out of her speeder for the gala venue. She offered the name of the designer to a fair amount of shock – and a most impressive roll of her father's eyes.

In the privacy of their home, just before they left to meet up with Tycho and Winter on the way to the event, Han had dramatically taken a knee at her feet, held her hips tightly, nudged aside the material to kiss her thigh – swore up and down there was no reason for them to attend these events – they could stay in, just the two of them – and the dress –

"You love it so much," Leia sang softly, tapping his shoulder. "I'll get jealous."

"S'nothin' without you in it," Han retorted, his eyes slowly returning to her face. He slid his thumb into the loop of one of the bows, scraping his bottom lip with his teeth. "What got into you?" he demanded appreciatively.

"I wanted something memorable," she said. "Something that was for you,  _your_  Leia," she went on, "something to distract them from hassling you,  _and_  to remind them that  _you_  got me."

Han nodded, lifting his hands to her neck.

"Mmm," he mumbled, leaning his head down to touch his forehead to hers. "My Leia," he repeated, closing his eyes briefly. "The black?" he asked huskily.

"Reclamation," Leia said coolly. She tilted her head fetchingly and smirked, lowering her voice. "And you know, when I was a young, innocent girl, I was always told that black was too bold – too sexy."

Han sucked in his breath.

"Too somethin'," he agreed hazily.

He shifted to the side, and Leia took a step back, finding a column with her shoulder and leaning against it. She looked up at him.

"You ought to be reveling in the attention of your guests," she remarked.

He stepped closer, bending to kiss her exposed collarbone. He nudged her shoulder with his nose, and then braced a palm next to her head and leaned over her, his other hand trailing over the decorative embroidery. Leia's heart raced – she always marveled at how it continued to race with the same flattered anticipation, the same enamored desire, as it had the very first time.

"You have any idea how bad I want you?" he asked in a low voice.

"I have some idea," Leia murmured, her eyes flicking down to his waist. She touched his lapel and tugged a little, clearing her throat. "Come here," she suggested.

Han bent his elbow to let her easily pull him closer, and both of her hands flew to his waist, messing with his belt, the fastener of his trousers – she moved gracefully, and quickly, adjusting just enough so that his arousal wasn't quite as obvious. Han grabbed her elbow tightly.

"That's not helping," he growled under his breath.

Leia bit her lip and re-fastened his trousers and belt, pushing her tongue against her teeth. She rose up a little, kissed his jaw, and shook her elbow free so she could grab his hand.

He squeezed hers tightly, and leaned closer.

"I want," he said in her ear, "to fuck you against this wall behind us."

His lips brushed her jaw. Leia turned her head into him.

"I'm already standing against the pillar."

Han turned his head to kiss her lips, his hand darting down dangerously to her hips, as if he was daring her to tempt him. She returned the kiss until she couldn't breathe, and then pulled away a fraction of an inch, laughing, her eyes wide – she swatted at his chest.

"You will  _wait_ ," she ordered. "We're surrounded," she hissed.

"No press, no holos," he argued, flashing a roguish smirk. His hand slipped from her waist, to just under the silk of her dress, resting temptingly at the apex of her thighs, right where skin met the scrap of lace masquerading as panties.

Leia let him touch, and tilted her head back to expose her neck. Han obliged her with a kiss.

"Duck out of here with me," he coaxed.

"If we slip away early, the world will know exactly what we've gone off to do," Leia said primly.

"Sweetheart, that dress is tellin' 'em all they need to know," Han drawled. "You know what it's sayin'? That Leia Solo's seen the filthy side of the bedroom," he teased, grinning devilishly, "that they can wipe their pure ideas from their minds 'cause a woman in that dress is getting bent over the – "

"Han," she started laughing huskily, her eyes sparkling, tilting her head back, "you  _dare_  talk that way to the – "

Mid tease, she broke off, biting her lip and silencing herself –  _to the mother of your child_ , she'd been about to joke, on the verge of loosing the little secret here in the middle of everyone, where neither of them could properly, and privately, enjoy it.

She swallowed hard, and Han looked at her curiously, his eyes dark with lust.

"To the what?" he prompted – only to be interrupted by the pointed clearing of a throat that could only belong to a disgruntled father.

Unsavory as her dalliance in the shadows may be to his eyes, Leia was at least partly glad her father had interrupted, saving her from scrounging up some lame excuse. Han so swiftly and effortlessly removed his hand from beneath her skirt that Leia almost didn't notice he'd done it; it was back braced beside her head in an instant, and Han was leaning back with an innocent look on his face.

"Winter indicated you were over here," Bail said darkly, giving Han a reproachful look – and sparing one for his daughter, as well.

Leia leaned to the side, craning her neck around the pillar, and saw Winter huddled next to Pooja Naberrie, both of them staring with rapt attention in her direction. When they caught sight of Leia looking for them, the waved at her and dissolved into laughter, clearly having caught sight of Han sneaking her away, and conspiring to interrupt with a clueless Viceroy.

Leia pursed her lips, and righted herself, returning to her casual lean, and casting her eyes on her father. She bit back a grin – it was something Winter might have done in the old days, in the palaces on Alderaan, if Leia had been ducking into shadowy corners to kiss boys, and Leia found that she almost relished it.

"I's just helping Leia find an earring," Han said blithely, despite Leia having both earrings neatly fastened in her ears. "Oh," he said, pointing at one. "There it is."

Bail folded his arms.

"There are several of your fellow soldiers who would like to make a toast," he said. "I offered to find you."

"Here I am," Han said.

"I see Winter was eager to help direct you," Leia remarked.

"Indeed. I am not sure why I keep trusting that she has my best interests at heart," Bail said dryly. He cleared his throat, and gestured to the open room. "Han, your admirers await," he said.

Han lifted two fingers and gave a sort of salute as an acknowledgement and then bent down to give Leia a hard kiss before slipping away. Bail turned to watch him, frowning mildly, and Han rubbed his hands together, emerging back into the light with a shout –

"Chewie, you bring my medals? Half the people here would be dead if I hadn't saved their asses – "

He was met with some rough verbal abuse from the Rogues, and Leia smiled, tilting her head against the pillar – Han as he had been in the early days, full of himself and loud about it, in a way that was somehow self-deprecating, and humbling, all at once.

"It's underwhelming, is it not?" she ventured, arching a brow at her father.

"What is?" he asked.

"That the first time you caught me sneaking around in the dark with a boy, it's the man I married two years ago," she said dryly.

"Hmmm," Bail grumbled.

He and Leia both stepped out of the shadows, Leia reaching up to pat at her hair a little, checking it. Bail glanced at her, and rolled his eyes, sighing.

"It looks fine," he offered. He paused for a beat. "Your lipstick is another matter," he grumbled, and Leia put two fingers to her lips, and smiled through them.

"Admit it, Father," she said wryly, "as far as bad girls go, I was a boring daughter."

"You had moments," Bail said stubbornly.

She laughed.

"What goes around comes around," she said cryptically, wondering what she'd have to deal with in the future – boy or girl.

With genetics like hers and Han's –

"You had to wear  _Lennoxx_?" Bail groaned, shaking his head – evidently unable to contain it any longer.

Leia smirked.

"He wanted to break into the couture market," she said. "I wanted a dress for Han."

"Bail," marching towards them, with a crystal glass in her hand, Rouge narrowed her eyes at her brother and lifted a hand, grasping his upper arm tightly. "You leave her alone about that dress," she snapped, evidently assessing what the conversation was about from his look alone.

Bail gave her an incredulous look.

"You choose now to become a progressive?" he demanded.

Rouge shushed him, clutching him in a tighter grip, and beginning to tug him away.

"Leia, darling, I think it's very dramatic," she said sincerely, unexpectedly approving.

Leia arched her brows, as Rouge tried to steer Bail away.

"She's  _married_ , Bail, she can wear whatever she likes – "

"Rouge. It's a basically a  _napkin_  – "

"Hush."

"You're drunk," Bail accused.

Rouge gave him an affronted look, her palm flying to her chest.

"Don't be vulgar – when aristocrats do this, it is called –  _inebriation_  – "

Leia compressed her lips, her eyes widening, watching her aunt give Bail an indignant shake of the head as she turned and stalked off. Bail turned back to Leia with a dubious expression on his face, and she burst out laughing.

"Perhaps you ought to go to bed," she teased.

"Perhaps I ought to get drunk," Bail countered, and Leia laughed a little harder. He shook his head. "Well, even your aunt has taken a walk on the wild side," he sighed.

"We live in a brave new world," Leia said.

She tilted her head at her father, and smiled, both of them looking out over the festivities again – in time to see Lando dragging Han up to a chair that had been placed on the dais and shoving him down into it, forcing a glass of whiskey into his hand and thrusting, onto his head –

"I think you got into a bit of trouble with this a few years ago, but you're in everyone's good graces now, eh?" Lando drawled.

The crude, twisted gold circlet glittered, and Leia closed her eyes, wincing good-naturedly at the reappearance of the crown that had once been splashed all over the holos along with Han's face, and the caption –  _King of Alderaan._

"That damn thing," her father swore beside her.

She turned her head to him, but he was smiling.

"I never did really hate him," Bail confessed. "He was just the prefect scapegoat for all the horror and confusion I was feeling. Over all the change, back then."

Leia smiled. She stepped closer, and looped her hand through her father's arm.

"Aww, Father," she crooned. "He did hate you. A little bit," she whispered.

Bail snorted.

"Thanks, Lelila," he muttered.

She watched, and watched, and when it became clear certain people were about to break into toasts, she wanted to be there with him, and make good on a promise – well, half a promise. She extracted her arm and began to move away; her father caught her wrist.

"Speaking of drinking," her father said, lowering his voice. He gave her a critical, searching look. "Hell of an evening to suddenly abstain from partaking," he noted perceptively.

Leia held his gaze for a moment, and said nothing. He was right – and hopefully, more observant than most; the eve of a huge celebration of her husband's career was an odd time to turn down a champagne toast.

She smiled at him, inclined her head, and gently shook her hand loose making good on her promise to herself not to tell anyone before Han. She made her way through some of the people – smiling and squeezing shoulders as she pushed through, and took a few steps up onto the dais to Han, folding her arms loosely and standing before him.

Grinning, he looked up at her, adjusting his mock crown.

"Your Worship," he greeted, loud enough for those closest to hear.

Leia considered him for a moment, and then looked over her shoulder at her gathered friends and family, a smug smile touching her lips. She made eye contact with some of the Rogues, then Lando, and turned, gathering her skirt neatly in her hands.

She performed an exaggerated curtsy to Han, then turned around and let him pull her full into his lap, swinging one of her legs over his knee. Several of his more rambunctious military colleagues gave ribald shouts, and Leia leaned her shoulder into him, lifting her brows and reaching up to straighten his crown herself.

"Hey Princess, I won a  _bet_  five years ago, and Antilles  _still_  won't pay up!" Wes Jansen called, his hands cupped around his mouth. "You got any clout there?"

"He didn't win the damn thing!" Wedge Antilles howled. " _I won_! Just neither of us had the stones to ask!"

Leia glanced around and settled her eyes on some of the more proper members of the group for a moment – her father, Mon Mothma, even Rieekan, to an extent, who had always kept his fraternization with his inferiors to a minimum. They looked taken aback, and mildly amused at the familiarity, and she grinned, turning her eyes back to Han.

Han slung his arm around her waist.

"Yeah?" he shouted back. "What was the bet?"

"You two," Jansen said. "When'd you hook up?"

"How're you definin' that?" Han asked.

"Uh, y'know, when did you two first – "

" _WES_ ," Luke bellowed dangerously.

"—decide you liked each other!" Jansen finished innocently.

"No," corrected Antilles loudly. "Love. The bet was  _love_."

Han leaned back a little, and looked at Leia. She shrugged, and nodded at him.

"Hope I say the same thing you're thinkin', eh, Sweetheart?" he asked quietly.

She gave him a prim look, and Han sat forward again, holding onto her waist tightly.

"Well me, I take a little warmin' up, but this one, she fell right into my arms on Yavin – "

Rolling her eyes, Leia cut him off by slapping a hand over his mouth and ripping the crown off his head, tossing it into the crowd with a flick of her wrist. She raised her voice above the laughter, eyeing both Wedge, and Wes.

"What was the bet?" she asked again.

Wedge stepped up, one foot on the bottom ledge of the dais.

"We had fifty credits on when you two would realize you loved each other. I said you'd figured it out by the time we left Hoth, Jansen said it clicked on Endor," he said. He wiggled his brows. "It's me, ain't it?"

Leia looked at Han. He shook his head; she shook hers. Antilles gave a shriek, shaking his head in disbelief.

"It took you until  _Endor?"_  he shouted, outraged.

"No," Leia corrected.

"You both lose," Han said smugly.

Jansen folded his arms.

"Yeah?" he asked suspiciously. "Then when?"

Leia pursed her lips, draping her arm over Han's shoulder. She twisted her hand into his lapel – she knew the moment she had stopped grappling with  _what_  it was she felt with Han, and begun trying to suppress it – and that was not on Endor, or Hoth, or even Bespin – though on the way to Bespin she had stopped trying to  _suppress_  it – and she knew, because of Han's explosive reaction to her near-death, he had the same epiphany, at the same time she did –

"Ord Mantell," Leia answered, precisely at the same time Han said – "Ord Mantell."

Jansen glared at her, and Antilles took a step back.

"Ord –  _what_?" he protested. "But – "

From the back of the crowd, there was a clinking noise, and Carlist Rieekan raised his glass above the group, clearing his throat.

"That settles that," he said sternly. "You  _both_  owe me fifty credits."

Jansen and Antilles shared a look of disbelief, and Han grinned, running his hand over Leia's back. He handed her his glass of whiskey, which she took, touched some of the liquid to her lips, and then handed back, shooting a furtive glance at her father, and then Luke, as she did so.

"Settle down, men," Carlist shouted, his old military bearing back for a split second. "I've got a toast to make before you vagrants drag us down a path of unspeakable vulgarity," he growled, well aware of how the toasts would devolve as the older crowd turned in for the night, and the rougher, younger crowd stayed on.

Rieekan's command was followed, and he moved forward some, center of the room, easily within earshot of Han and Leia both. Leia reached up and stroked the hair at the nape of Han's neck, knowing him well enough to know he might be uncomfortable with this kind of attention – and he'd been drinking. Like anyone else, he had less control over his emotions when he was drinking.

"General Solo," Rieekan began, quieting the room. "You've been called many things other than 'general,' and I reckon you deserved most of 'em," he quipped seriously.

Leia laughed, quietly, and tilted her head at Han. He smiled at her.

"Hard as it is to see a fine soldier go, I always did think 'Captain' suited you best," Rieekan went on firmly. "Mark my words, you'll go down in history as 'Captain' Solo, military service be damned. I've said most of what I had to say to you here and there over the years," he continued, "and I'm not gonna repeat it here so these punks can call me soft," he said, gesturing around at the Rogues – Wedge snickered. "So here's what's important – you live up to your bloodstripes, Han; that about sums it up. You've saved more of my people than I have and for that, I thank you. You may not know it, but you've been the strength of Alderaan when  _she_  needed it most," he held his glass up briefly to Leia, "Princess," he murmured, and turned back to Han, "and those of us who needed her appreciate it."

Rieekan cleared his throat, and lifted his chin, glancing around until he caught Bail's eye. Leia looked around, taken aback, and straightened a little when she saw her father approaching them. Bail gave her a smug look, as if he was pleased he'd pulled something over on her, and turned back to glance at Rieekan, nodding.

"The New Republic already gave you the usual ribbons that you threw on that uniform you keep wrinkled in a closet," Rieekan said dryly.

"Smuggling compartment," Han piped up.

Leia elbowed him, and gave him a look.

"Well, wherever it is," Rieekan said. He raised his glass towards Bail. "With the Viceroy's consent, I authorized an honorary commission for you in Alderaan's Palace Guard – Commandant's order," he said gruffly. "It's my honor to confer on you the Antibes Spear."

Leia drew back, looking over at Rieekan with shock. When the planet had been destroyed, Rieekan was the only ranking member of the Palace Guard who had earned an Antibes Spear, the highest order of honor, presented in the form of cufflinks for the uniform, and a white gold lapel pin.

To her knowledge, he had been in possession of the only remaining pair in the galaxy, which would mean –

Next to Han, her father opened a box with the pins – artifacts now – in them. Leia only had to look at the cufflink, one of them chipped, and burned, which has happened during a skirmish in the Rebellion, to know they were Carlist's.

She looked over to him again, her gaze imploring him to come closer. He started to move, gesturing for others to raise their glasses as he did. Swiftly, Leia leaned down and quietly whispered to Han what was going on, though from the dazed, stiff-jawed look on Han's face, she could tell he at least sensed the significance.

She pressed her hand tightly against his chest.

"When you first brought me back, I was told we don't give you medals," Bail quipped dryly, closing the box in his hands and handing it to Han. "I saw the merit of making an exception."

Leia stood up, allowing Han to rise, holding the box gingerly in his hand. He looked down at it for a heavy moment, and then looked up, nodding, and extending his hand to Bail. Carlist came to stand near Leia – and she turned to him, reaching out to touch his arm, her voice very low.

"Carlist, your spears – are you sure?" she asked, her voice catching.

He nodded.

"Princess," he said gently, "they should have gone to my sons, as keepsakes, and now that can never be. I don't want them in a museum when I die," he inclined his head at her and Han. "I'd rather them be kept in a family. I can't think of a better family than yours. You've been like a daughter," he said. "Han can pass them to your child."

Leia's hand tightened imperceptivity.

" _You_  know?" she whispered, a little exasperated – Luke, Mara, Chewie – her father suspected –

Rieekan looked confused.

"Know what?" he whispered.

Leia winced, and clamped her mouth shut. Rieekan raised his eyebrows slowly, starting to grin. He started to speak, then just shook his head, and winked, lifting his hand to mime zipping his lips.

"Hey, Sweetheart," Han said gruffly, turning to show her the pins again. "What do you think of that?" he asked, looking to meet her eyes.

Leia swallowed hard, composing herself, hoping her face didn't look too suspicious - - she smiled, laughing as she reached out to touch the cool gold.

"I think the Viceroy ought to worry about what the Palace Guard is doing with his daughter," she teased.

Bail gave her a look, but Han smirked, and shut the lid once more, reaching out to extend his hand to Rieekan.

"Carlist," he said under his breath, and Rieekan grasped his hand firmly, raising his glass.

"To Han," he said loudly – a toast that was echoed in a raucous, sincere chorus.

Han looked around him, almost sheepish, and then looked down at Leia, searching her expression. She reached out to take his glass from him, and bent to set it on the floor, moving closer and situating herself against his side. He touched the back of her head gently.

"Not fair, Boss," Antilles shouted at Rieekan, glaring at him from behind Luke. "How the hell are the rest of us supposed to top that?"

Rieekan snorted, taking a few steps back.

"Oy – one hundred credits to the first speech that makes Solo cry," Lando offered loudly. "Double or nothin' if you guess which person's speech it is," he held his glass out towards Leia. "My money's on the missus – got a toast for him, Leia?" he challenged.

Leia turned to Han, her hand on his chest. She smiled at him breezily, and turned back to the crowd, fluttering her lashes suggestively.

"Yes," she said, tossing her hair. "It's private."

Lando hollered.

"I'll take the challenge," Luke said, pretending to dust off his robes. He dramatically cleared his throat. "Han," he began solemnly, "we've been friends since I rescued your desperate soul from prostitution in the slums of Mos – "

Han mimed drawing his blaster on Luke, and Leia glared at her brother, a little surprised at his teasing. Luke grinned at her, and raised his glass, winking. Rieekan looked over the couple's shoulder pointedly, eyeing Bail, and then caught Leia's eye, gesturing at the younger group.

"What did I tell you?" he drawled. "Though even I didn't predict Skywa _l_ ker starting it."

Leia smiled, and pushed Han back down in his chair – where he was going to sit, and drink, and bask in the rest of his celebratory toasts. She took the box of treasured heirlooms from him and held them against her stomach, reclaiming her perch on his thigh, and crossing her legs at the ankle down by his feet.

He looked up at her, one eyebrow cocked, his eyes blazing.

"So," he drawled. "I'm your palace guard now."

Leia brushed her knuckles under his chin seductively.

"My hero," she simpered –

\- and she lowered her lips to his, without a care in the world.

* * *

It was not the first night that they had come home from some event – she in an evening gown, and he in some variation of formal dress, depending on what he could get away with – stumbling in late at night with hazy thoughts, Leia elegantly tipsy, Han decidedly more so.

This night had nuances to it; Leia was sober, Han was not, though he was by no means out of control, and there was living, breathing anticipation in the air, different from the usual comfortable expectation of rolling into bed and rolling around with each other until sleep claimed them and they slept late and lazy tomorrow morning.

Han veered towards the kitchen, and Leia nudged him instead towards the sitting room, nearly tripping him with her feet.

"Night cap," he murmured, falling back on tradition.

"I have a night cap for you," Leia murmured back, placing her hand on his chest and guiding him towards the sofa. She had almost made it without incident until Zozy, who was perched in his bed in the corner of the dark room, saw them and leapt up, chirping happily and darting over to them.

Han swore at him affectionately, and Leia paused, stepping past Han to crouch down and pick Zozy up, lavishing him with some snuggles before she smoothed down his tail and kissed his snout.

"Zozy," she murmured, stroking his feathers back and reaching out with her power to calm him. She clicked her tongue softly, and set him back on the floor. "Go to bed, Zozy," she coaxed gently. "We'll be up in a minute."

Zozy wagged his tail at her happily, calmed down, and then trotted off.

Han turned his head to watch him, his brow furrowed.

"How'd you…?" he asked – it was usually an olympic feat to calm Zozy down.

Leia turned to him and crossed her arms primly.

"I'm a witch."

Han stepped closer and grinned at her, sliding his hands down her hips. He nodded, leaning down to kiss her, and then spun around. Han's hands slipped delicately off Leia as he dropped onto their sofa, a grin still lighting up his face. He leaned back, looking up, his eyes raking over her —

The dress was just as divine in the late night, low light of their living room as it was earlier this evening, as it was at the brightly lit venue. She looked so  _incredible_ , so -

He lunged forward, grasping her hips in his hands and bending forward - to kiss her thigh, through the slits in her gown, then her abdomen, his lips brushing over the textured, glittering black lace – and then he pulled her down to him, and she knelt over his lap, one of his thighs trapped between her legs, her smile dazzling.

He pressed his head against her breast, his mouth dry -

"You look so good," he murmured, "come here, come closer."

He dipped her down into an improvised swoon, turning to kiss her, tangling up with her on the sofa - and Leia burst out laughing, her face flushing. He buried his head in her neck, taking a deep breath, nuzzling his head against her shoulder affectionately.

He reached up to stroke her hair, bent over her, his face close to hers —

"You really mine?"

Leia shifted to get comfortable, pressing herself back into the sofa, slipping her arms up to his neck. Her thumbs traced circles behind his ears, and she nodded, pursing her lips.

"Yes," she breathed, leaning forward to kiss him.

Han took a deep breath and leaned into her, returning the kiss. He rested his weight on her for a moment, and then swept her back up again, leaning back against the sofa and settling her on his lap again. He pushed his hands through her hair and held her head. His hands stayed there, engaging in a slow, soothing massage, and it made her feel sleepy, and safe, until she pulled away to look at him, her eyes heavy.

He rested his head back, and smiled at her charmingly, reaching up to touch her under the chin. Leia pressed her hands to his cheeks, and let them drift down to his neck, rising up on her knees and moving closer. She parted her lips, her heart racing – this was what she had wanted, waited for,  _planned;_ to tell him now, give him something to look forward to, and yet the words caught in her throat.

She felt so confident that nothing would go wrong, so saying the words out loud to him would be so final, such a resounding confirmation that their lives were going to change forever, in ways their lives had never changed before – they had been through so much, and  _this_  still seemed so nerve-wracking.

She knew he would be happy, but she was scared for a moment, and anxious, and she kept looking at him, trying to put together the most perfect way to get the words out – it was so easy last time, so calm and simply, and maybe that was because deep down, it hadn't been real at all, not for long –

\- but this was real; she knew it was.

She felt it.

She breathed out slowly, steadying herself. Han reached up and took one of her hands, turning the palm up to kiss it languidly.

"What're you gonna do with me hangin' around all the time, Sweetheart?" he drawled. "You gonna get tired of me?"

Leia turned her hand around to hold his. She raised her eyebrows, and shook her head slowly.

"No," she murmured, her voice trembling slightly.

Han tilted his head at her a little curiously. He blinked, studying her through a thin haze of alcohol; able to tell something was on her mind even in a less than sober state. He held her hand tightly, waiting, and then smiled again, a lopsided smirk.

"Don't stress, Sweetheart," he drawled. "I'll find somethin' to do," he teased. He reached over and stroked his fingers through her hair, gently shaking some of it loose. "I'll stay out of your hair," he murmured, leaning forward to kiss her jaw, "'cept when you want me all tangled in it."

She moved closer to him, her grip tightening.

"Han," she whispered.

She swallowed hard, nudging his jaw with her nose.

"You'll have things to do. We'll have things to do. You – I have something for you to do," she said.

Han blinked at her.

"Hmm?" he asked. "What're you talkin' about?"

Leia pulled his hand towards her chest, tucking it against her tightly.

"I need you around here. You don't have to go –  _do_  anything," she said. She reached up to push his hair back, holding his gaze intently. "You can be a father, Han," she said, nodding her head. "That's something, yeah?" she said hoarsely. "That'll give you something to do."

She held his hand tightly while he looked at her, his face still. He blinked a few times and sat forward, shaking her grip off and then reaching up to touch her face gingerly.

"What?" he asked. "You're - ?"

"Ye-e-es," Leia said, nodding feverishly. She grasped his wrists. "I'm – we're – I found out a couple of weeks ago," she leaned forward and pressed a short kiss to his lips. "I'm pregnant."

Han sucked in his breath.

"You – " he started hoarsely. He leaned forward to kiss her. " _Weeks_  – why didn't you tell me– "

"I was nervous, I was making sure it was going to take, and I wanted – to tell you now, you know, you – and I – we've been wondering what's next and," Leia shrugged, laughing breathlessly – "well, that's what's next."

Han drew back and stared at her in awe. He swallowed hard, and shook his head slowly.

"You're serious?" he asked, his voice hushed, as if he didn't believe it, or she might be playing with him.

Leia nodded eagerly, relief coursing through her blood. Han looked at her for a long time and then lunged forward to hug her close, pressing his forehead tight to her breasts, squeezing her gently, and then letting his head drift down until his forehead pressed against her abdomen.

He let his hands drift down to hold her hips firmly, and she felt him take a deep, steady breath, lifting his head, his nose and lips brushing against her ribs. He felt so overwhelmed, in the best of ways – not with apprehension, but with relief and excitement – and Leia was so happy, so sure of herself – he took another deep breath, and rested his brow against her side.

Her fingers slipped into his hair, and after a moment, she guided his head upwards, making herself small to look down at him.

"Han," she murmured softly, pressing her lips gently against his brow. She caught and held his tense gaze for a moment, and then reached up to brush her thumbs under his eyes discreetly, following the movement with feather-like kisses.

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his for a moment, and when she opened them, he was staring at her boldly, his eyes red, but dryer. He made a thick sound in the back of his throat, clearing it to speak –

"Lando owes you a hundred credits, huh?" he grunted softly.

She just smiled, smoothing his hair back. He wrapped his arms around her again and pulled her close, clasping the back of her head in his palm and turning his head into her hair, close to her ear.

"I love you so much, Leia," he mumbled. "So much. You do everything, you mean everything," he praised, leaning back. "Nothin' means more to me than you, you hear me?"

Leia pursed her lips.

"You'll have to make a  _little_  room," she coaxed.

Han laughed hoarsely. He held her tightly for a moment longer, and then tilted her head, sitting forward and jostling her abruptly. She leapt to her feet, surprised, and he stood, taking her hand, inclining his head.

"Han," she started – he only held her hand more firmly, navigating through the living room and towards the stairs.

She laughed, raising her brows, and gathered her skirts, following him through the halls of their home until he stopped and spun her into the empty bedroom, the one with the window seat, and the single decoration – the shadowbox of arallute petals on the wall.

Leia stopped next to him, leaning into his side and looking at it, until he turned to face her, catching her hips in his hands, and then sinking down first to a knee, and then the other, gently pulling her to the floor with him, until they were level with the calm moonlight shimmering through the window.

Without a word, he leaned forward and kissed her, bending her backwards at the waist, and when that began to be uncomfortable, Leia braced a hand at her side and lowered herself to the floor, pulling Han delicately over top of her. She pulled until she could feel his weight on her, and it could settle into her mind and heart that this was all real, all tangible – new, permanent home, equilibrium in a peaceful galaxy, a baby –

She caught her breath and tilted her head back, lifting her hand to brush her palm against her cheek. Han caught it, pulled it to his mouth, and kissed it, taking her shoulder and gripping it firmly as he rolled, pulling her atop him. Leia rested her forearms on his chest, her fingers idly stroking his lapels, and his hands went not to her hips, or her ribs, but to her face, brushing the loose hairs framing her temple.

They looked at each for a long time, until Leia's lips trembled, and she bowed her head, pressing it against Han's shirt to wipe her tears away, lifting her eyes again to look at him.

"We've worked so hard for," she said, breaking off, "all of this, everything," she whispered fiercely. "We  _deserve_  this."

He nodded, swallowing hard.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, Sweetheart, we do."

She slid her hands up to his neck, lowering her forehead to his again. She licked her lips, pressing closer until she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, reaching out with her sensitivity to softly, just softly, listen to the faint hum of an additional heartbeat on the fringe of her awareness – listening to its strength, and promise.

"Han," she whispered his name lightly. "I feel so… _awake_."

He trailed his fingers over her cheek, and brushed his thumb over her lip, eyes on her intently – struck by that comment, finding it elusive, and tantalizing somehow – why did it ring so significantly in his hears, stick out with such grandeur? He struggled with the light haze of alcohol and the feverish pounding of blood in his hears – fever over her, over the prospect of fatherhood,  _fatherhood_  –

\- and then it clicked; words of hers, from what now seemed like a lifetime ago, rang through his ears, defeated and distant –  _I'm tired, Han_  – the words she'd said to him the night Bail Organa's emblem appeared in the sky, words that had bundled all her heartache and trauma into such simplicity, words that had begged for help and respite and carried grim, dogged determination all at once.

He reached up and unpinned the rest of her hair, letting it all come free, and working his hands easily through the twists and braids until it was wild around her shoulders, dancing around her face and his hands. He didn't say anything – didn't need to; both of them understood the weight of the grateful silence, and reveled in it, alone with each other in a home of their own making, poised on the edge of a life so vastly different than either of them had expected or imagined, and so infinitely better that what might have been in store.

The equilibrium of the moment, the triumphant promise of the future – both lingered around them in a halo of battle born freedom, and Leia held his gaze, and she knew – he knew – there was no better way to salute the bloodshed, the grief, the sacrifice, and the pain of the past than by  _living_  – living unrepentant, and healed.

* * *

 

_The End_

_8 ABY_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so surreal to post this.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> -alexandra

**Author's Note:**

> \- alexandra !!!


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